


The Last Rites and Resurrection of Sam Winchester

by iamremy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Djinni & Genies, Established Relationship, Ghosts, Guilty Dean Winchester, Hurt Sam Winchester, M/M, Mind Control, Murder-Suicide, Protective Dean Winchester, Reaper Billie (Supernatural: Form and Void), Season/Series 13, castiel - Freeform, death echoes, graphic description of suicide, live burial
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-21
Updated: 2018-11-21
Packaged: 2019-08-27 06:42:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16697389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamremy/pseuds/iamremy
Summary: An outbreak of violent murder-suicides. Death echoes. A centuries-old djinn. It's a formidable combination on a good day. And on a bad day? Well, on a particularly bad day, it all culminates in Dean burying his brother. Alive.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i am SO FUCKING EXCITED. i signed up for this big bang the moment i saw the post on tumblr and i don't think i've ever been this hyped about a big bang before. it's just such a brilliant idea, holy SHIT. and the stories everyone is writing are so good! i'm literally having the time of my life.
> 
> before i begin, i'd like to thank, first and foremost, the amazing mods of the [spn eldritch big bang](http://spneldritchbang.tumblr.com) for the amazing job they've done in putting all of this together. you guys are rockstars!!
> 
> my beta is the superstar [dri](http://sxviorsam.tumblr.com), who always comes through for me and gives the best advice and feedback. my work would be an illegible mess without them, and i'm forever grateful for both their friendship and their feedback. i love you <3
> 
> as always, my girls pooja and sanjana, the best wives anyone could ask for, the loves of my life, my team free will, my babes. couldn't ever do shit without your love and support. i love you guys so so much <3 thank you for sitting through my whining and bitching, for going through the fic for me, and for always enabling me when i come up with plans to hurt sam <3
> 
> the beautiful, gorgeous, glorious art is by [cris aka quickreaver](http://quickreaver.tumblr.com) who is literally THE BEST. the LITERAL BEST. i know it wasn't easy for you babe but you came through for me, and it means the world to me. thank you so so much, you're a pleasure to speak to and work with, and i look forward to working with you in the future where possible <3
> 
> just a note before we begin: i have played hard and fast with djinn mythos in this fic. i'm a muslim, and djinns are a part of our religion, so i've used some of that knowledge here but i've also made some things up, so take all that with a grain of salt, please.
> 
> there are also graphic depictions of suicide in this story. proceed with caution if that's a trigger or a squick for anyone. please stay safe!
> 
> onwards.

**The Last Rites and Resurrection of Sam Winchester**

**Story:** iamremy  
**Beta:** dridri93/sxviorsam  
**Art:** quickreaver

Sam’s right side feels like it’s on fire; the numbness has dissolved into pain sometime over the course of the past few hours, and now he can barely move it without wanting to cry out. But he resists the urge – oxygen is spare, and he cannot afford to waste any. He knows better than that.

He has no idea how long it’s been since he’s been trapped – enough to know that help’s not coming. He’s either going to have to figure this one out on his own, or die trying. Neither are appealing options at the moment.

There wasn’t much air to begin with – and now, he has an optimistic estimate of half an hour at the most. Claustrophobia crept in right after he woke up, and he knows it’s not possible but it does feel like the dark is closing in on him. Almost like the air is shrinking around him. He supposes it kind of is.

His head hurts too, now, as if the pain in his side wasn’t enough. He knows it’s from the lack of breathable air, can already feel his heart throw itself frantically against his ribs in an attempt to compensate, his pulse hammering in his ears. There’s no point, though. If he can’t figure out a way out of here he will be dead in some time.

God, it’s just that – his brain. It won’t work. Not as fast as it usually does. Nor as effectively. That’s thanks to the lack of oxygen too.

He tries brute force one more time – a rather lackluster _thump_ in an upwards direction. It doesn’t work. Of course it doesn’t. The coffin is made of solid wood, with six feet of heavy earth on top. Even if Sam does manage to break through the top, he’d have to dig his way up to the surface, and he’s damn sure he can’t do that in the state he’s in, not when every little movement jostles his side and makes him want to curl up and pass out from the sheer agony.

 _Dammit, Dean_ , he thinks desperately. Maybe if he thinks it hard enough, Dean will somehow hear his pleas. _Come on. Get me out of here_.

 

In a motel room one town over, Dean sleeps on, despite the fact that his brother is six feet under in a solid oak coffin, presumed dead and clearly otherwise, though closer to it than either of them would like.


	2. Chapter 2

**It began like this:**

Sweat dripped steadily down Sam’s back, soaking through his thin cotton shirt and pooling in the dips of his collarbones. His arms ached something fierce, but he welcomed the burn, pushing himself harder, straining as much as he could.

Maybe it was due to the fact that he was finally allowing his guard to be lower in the bunker, or maybe it was because of how focused he was on his workout. Whatever it was, he didn’t hear any sign that he was not alone, not until Dean’s grinning face appeared above his and nearly startled him into dropping the weights on himself. Dean caught the barbell before Sam could die a grisly death, and then his grin widened.

“Losing your touch, Sammy?” he asked, resetting the weights and reaching a hand out towards Sam.

Sam just rolled his eyes, but took Dean’s hand anyway and let himself be pulled up to a sitting position. Dean handed him a bottle of water and a towel, and waited while he took a long drink before asking, “You done?”

Sam nodded. “Was just finishing. When did you get here?”

Dean shrugged. “About five, six minutes ago?” His grin morphed into something lecherous. “Was enjoying the view.”

Sam felt his face flush, and knew without having to look that he was bright red. “Of course you were,” he muttered, dipping his head. The way Dean was looking at him made him feel naked, even though his workout clothes were pretty modest – just an old cotton shirt, and sweatpants.

“Aw, Sammy, look at you gettin’ all shy,” teased Dean. “Anyway, come on now, I made dinner. Shower first, though,” he added as Sam stood. “You smell.”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Sam, all traces of shyness disappearing. “Because your sweat smells like roses and champagne.”

“Well, I’m not sweating now, am I?” retorted Dean. _“You_ are. Clean up, I’ll get dinner ready.”

 

When Dean said dinner Sam had assumed he’d made burgers and a salad at most. There was a salad, yes, but no burgers, and the salad itself looked fancier than Sam had ever seen outside of a pricey uptown restaurant. There was some kind of pasta, too, and _wine_. Actual _wine_ , not whiskey or scotch or cheap beer.

His mouth was dry, suddenly. “Did you – did you make all this?”

Dean nodded, looking a little self-conscious. “Yeah,” he said. “Wanna – um. Wanna sit?”

Sam sat. He felt a little light-headed, and it wasn’t just the mouthwatering aroma. “This is – wow.” His brain was short-circuiting.

“I had to, uh, get a cookbook,” Dean said, still awkward, as he sat across from Sam at the small table in the kitchen. “And it took me a while to get the ingredients, but well – I managed. And I had to Google the fancy cooking terms, but, uh – oh, fuck it, just eat it, will you, Sam?”

Sam blinked in surprise at the sudden change in tone. “Dean,” he said. “It looks _wonderful_.” And it did, it really did. He just wasn’t sure what to make of it.

To avoid having to say anything further, he took a bite of the salad. Against his own will he found himself closing his eyes, warmth flooding his body as flavor after flavor exploded in his mouth. “Oh my _God_ ,” he said, opening his eyes, and then flushed at how – how _sexual_ it sounded. “Shit. Dean. This is amazing.”

Despite the overwhelming awkwardness Dean looked pleased with himself. “You think so?”

Sam nodded, taking another bite. “Yeah,” he said. “Thank you.”

Dean smiled, still a little self-conscious, but now it was more endearing than awkward. “Here, try the fettuccini whatever,” he said, pushing the dish towards Sam. “It took me damn near forever. And have the wine, too. It’s supposed to be a vintage, cost me a good buck.”

Sam swallowed his mouthful, and then said, “Dean, not that I don’t appreciate it – I do, I really do – but I’ve gotta ask, man. What’s going on?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Dean said.

“Um.” Sam took a moment to rack his brains. “No,” he said finally. “Um. Sorry. It’s – uh. Well, it’s not either of our birthdays. And I can’t really think of anything else—”

“Jesus,” Dean said, but it sounded more fond than exasperated. He rolled his eyes. “Sammy, I’m – I’m trying to do a nice thing for you, idiot. You know. Like. Um. This is what people do, isn’t it? When they’re. You know. Together.”

Great, now he was awkward again. But it wasn’t like before – now Dean was the one red in the face, not quite making eye contact, instead pushing his food around his plate.

“Oh.” It hit Sam. “ _Oh_. Like – like a date. Right.”

“God, I need alcohol,” was Dean’s response, before he chugged down his wine in one go. And that was something so utterly Dean-like, so normal, that Sam couldn’t help but laugh.

“This is funny to you?” Dean demanded.

“No,” Sam replied at once, but he was still smiling. “Sorry. It’s. Well, it’s kind of sweet.”

“Yeah?” Dean looked hopeful.

Sam nodded, just to reassure him. This was pretty new, to both of them, even though they’d been together in the biblical sense for a long time now. But it had never really felt different – it just felt like they were the same way they’d always been, but now with sex in the equation. It wasn’t like they went on dates or held hands as they walked down the street. It was just –

One night Sam had come into Dean’s room because he’d been unable to sleep and he knew Dean was awake too, and one thing had led to another, and Sam’s room was pretty much unused now except for the rare night every now and then. And if Dean sometimes put his hand on Sam’s thigh as they drove, or if Sam rested his head on Dean’s shoulder a lot more than he used to – well, it wasn’t anything too radically different from what they were used to. It just felt natural, like the next logical step.

Which was why this – date, or whatever it was – came a bit out of left field for Sam. Not that it was an unwelcome surprise, though. Sam could tell Dean put a lot of effort into everything, from getting the food just right, down to the solitary occult candle in the middle of the table (because of course Dean probably hadn’t been able to find any other kind). It wasn’t what Sam was used to, but it was _perfect_ nevertheless, and it felt like Sam was going to drown in the love he felt for Dean, the way it saturated every nerve, every cell in his body, every fiber of his being and every last atom of his tainted soul.

“I love it,” he said in the end, and smiled warmly at Dean.

Dean relaxed in his seat, and muttered “Thank God” under his breath. Then he looked up, eyes glinting with something primal, and then asked, all innocence and charm, “Does this mean I get laid tonight?”

In Sam’s opinion he totally deserved the lettuce that Sam threw at him.

(But he also did end up getting laid.)

 

Sam woke up the next morning to the sound of Dean tapping away on a keyboard, and opened his eyes to find Dean sitting up in bed with his laptop. “Mm, what are you doing?” he mumbled, stretching, before shuffling closer to Dean.

“I think I found us a case,” Dean told him, not looking away from the laptop. “Bit far, about twelve or so hours from here. Kirkwell, New York.”

“What is it?” Sam asked. Dean saw him angling his neck to look into the laptop screen and turned it sideways so he could take a better look.

“Sounds like vengeful spirits,” he said. “People have been reporting dead loved ones turning up again and killing someone they had a grudge against when they were alive.”

“More than one spirit?” Sam questioned, no longer sleepy.

“Looks like it,” confirmed Dean. “Worth checking out. At the very least it’ll just be a salt and burn – and if it’s something else, we can figure that out too.”

For a moment Sam considered passing the job on to someone who’d be closer, but then remembered that they didn’t know what it was and there was no guarantee they wouldn’t be called in for help anyway. “Yeah, okay, sure,” he said in the end. “Let me shower, and then we can head out.”

“Right,” said Dean. “I’ll make us breakfast.”

“Uh, okay,” said Sam. “We could just have it on the road—”

“I’m making breakfast,” Dean repeated firmly. “Get your ass in the shower now.”

“ _Fine_.”


	3. Chapter 3

Sam woke to gentle fingers in his hair and darkness outside. Sitting up straight with a groan, he mumbled, “How long was I out for?”

“A couple hours or so,” Dean answers, withdrawing his hand.

“Feels like it too,” Sam muttered. “We there?”

“Yep,” said Dean shortly.

Something about his tone chased away the last dregs of sleep; suddenly uneasy, Sam sat up a bit higher and squinted out into the darkness. “Dean?” he said a moment later. “Why is it—”

“Deserted and dark?” completed Dean. “Beats me. It’s fucking creepy, is what it is.”

“Should we – should we check it out?” Sam asked.

“Probably,” Dean said.

They made no move to get out of the car.

“This is stupid,” Dean muttered.

“Let’s just… do it,” Sam suggested. He’d survived millennia with Lucifer, a little bit of darkness and desolation wasn’t going to kill him.

The air outside the car was unusually heavy, humid and oppressive as it pressed down on them. Sam took a deep breath and then another, and then one more when he realized it felt like his lungs were unable to expand.

“I don’t like this,” Dean said, his voice coming out of the darkness. It struck Sam that even though his brother was just a few feet away on the other side of the Impala, he was not visible.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Sammy. Hang on a second.” A moment later, Sam felt Dean’s hand on his wrist, and felt himself relaxing infinitesimally.

From what he could tell, they were standing right at the edge of the town. All he could make out through the unnaturally thick darkness – too damn reminiscent of Amara – were the vague outlines of buildings, and some trees lining the sides of the road. No lights. No people. No movement at all, not even the wind. Nothing to indicate any life.

“This is so weird,” he said.

Dean’s hand was still on his wrist. Whether for reassurance or to keep him close, Sam wasn’t sure. “I say we get back in the car, drive around a bit, see if we can find anyone. Or hell, _anything_.”

“And if there’s nothing?” Sam asked.

Dean shrugged. His hand slid down to squeeze Sam’s for a moment before letting go, and immediately Sam missed the contact. “We’ll figure something out.”

Instead of going back round to his side of the car, Dean opened Sam’s door and got in, sliding over to the driver’s side. Sam got in just a moment after him and slammed the door shut, the sound making the air around them vibrate eerily.

Even the Impala’s bright headlights could not do much to illuminate the road before them, and Dean drove at a snail’s pace, head in constant motion as he looked around for anything. Sam was uncomfortably aware of his own heart, beating away in his chest, not quite fast just yet but on the way there. The whole situation was unprecedented, and creepy as fuck, and matters were not improved at all by the fact that neither brother could see a single living thing in the world beyond the car.

“I think we might need to call for backup on this one,” Sam said presently, eyes still trained outside. He could see the silhouettes of houses and shops, but so far not a single one had any lights on, and there was not a single person to be seen.

“Let’s take a look around first and see what we can find out,” Dean said.

“Wasn’t this supposed to be a salt and burn?” Sam said.

“It was,” Dean replied. “The article talking about the vics wasn’t old either. A couple days at best. What could possibly have happened between then and now to make this place look like a fucking ghost town?”

Sam shrugged. “Who knows? I dunno, Dean, I just don’t have a good feeling about this.”

They had reached the end of the town, which looked exactly like the beginning did. Nothing but darkness and silence. It looked like what Sam imagined a grave felt like. He considered saying it out loud, but then remembered that Dean knew what graves felt like and probably wouldn’t want to revisit that particular memory.

“Okay, how about this,” Dean said. “We find a place to stay for the night. We come back in the morning, see what we can figure out in the light of day. If nothing, we leave, and we call for backup. Sounds okay?”

Sam frowned. “I guess,” he said in the end. “I still don’t like it, though. This whole place. It just feels… wrong, somehow.”

Dean was quiet for a moment. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said finally. “Maybe it’ll look better in the morning though.”

He didn’t sound convinced, and Sam wasn’t either. “Maybe,” he said anyway.

It took everything he had in him to resist the urge to move just a little closer to Dean. He hadn’t been a scared little kid in a long time, but that didn’t change the fact that being near to Dean just made everything better, usually. He just didn’t know how Dean would react to it now, when they were both adults and hadn’t needed to hold hands in literal decades.

His internal dilemma was made moot a moment later, when Dean let go of the gear and put his hand on Sam’s. “Fucking ghost town,” he muttered, and Sam realized that Dean needed to be close to him too.

He turned his hand over, and laced their fingers together. “Case hasn’t even begun and I already can’t wait for it to be over,” he replied. He didn’t know why he was speaking in hushed tones. Just that it felt like anything louder than a whisper would draw unnecessary attention to them – if the Impala’s engine hadn’t already.

He didn’t even know whose attention he was afraid of drawing.

They sat in uneasy silence for the rest of the ride out of the town, hands still connected. The sight of streetlights in the distance was as jarring as it was welcome, and Sam didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until they finally passed under one and he could see more than three feet in front of his face.

Dean found them a motel in the next town over. Even though it had been months now, Sam still expected to hear “two queens” and was always pleasantly surprised when he heard “king” instead. It was kind of silly to assume that they’d take different beds on the road when they shared one back home, but Sam still had some trouble letting go of it. Probably because it was such a deeply ingrained habit.

It was pretty late by the time they’d settled in bed, curled under the covers and facing each other, but even then Sam had difficulty getting to sleep. Going by the way Dean kept shifting next to him, Sam knew he wasn’t the only one, either. There was just this ill feeling he couldn’t shake, this horrible sensation like something was crawling all over his skin.

“Fuck it,” he heard Dean mutter, what seemed like hours later but was probably closer to forty minutes. “Can’t get any fucking rest.”

“Me neither,” Sam admitted. “I feel like I can’t get it off me. The town, I mean.”

It didn’t make a lot of sense when he said it out loud, but Dean nodded anyway. “Yeah, I know what you mean. Sooner this case is over, the happier I’ll be.”

“Yeah.”

They lay there in silence, facing each other, barely half a foot of space between them. Somehow, being able to see Dean despite the lack of light in the room, being able to feel the warmth of his breath, put Sam at ease. Not enough for him to relax completely – just enough for him to drop into a restless doze an hour or so before sunrise.

In the morning he was very glad he couldn’t remember what he’d dreamed about.


	4. Chapter 4

The town looked far less threatening in the morning, though it was just as empty and lifeless. Dean was driving slowly again, both of them on the lookout for anything that could help them. They passed a few homes, an empty general store, a medical center with shuttered windows, and a school that looked like it came from a horror movie set. No humans. Not even so much as a stray cat.

“Yeah, this isn’t any better,” Sam said.

“Can’t even fucking see much anyway,” Dean complained. The fog was still there. Not as thick as it had been the night before, and visibility was better, but not by much.

Sam pulled out his phone to look up whatever this was, and then stopped short. “No coverage,” he sighed. Because of course there wasn’t.

“Peachy,” muttered Dean. “Just fucking peachy.”

“It’s the 21st century, you’d think even creepy ghost towns would have coverage,” Sam said with a sigh, putting his phone away. “Guess we do this old-school.”

“Old-school involves libraries, Sammy. You see any?” Dean asked sarcastically.

“There’s Dad’s journal, and I’ve got my laptop back at the motel, and—”

“Sammy, shut up.”

“Dean—”

“ _Quiet_ , Sam.”

It was the urgency in Dean’s tone more than the words that made Sam obey. Every muscle in Dean’s body was tense, and when Sam followed his gaze he saw what had Dean looking so cautious.

A man was standing next to the abandoned medical center, watching them. Dean slowed the Impala to a crawl, easing it towards the man. Sam could just make out his features from the distance they were at - dark hair, tan skin, a mild-mannered face and a relaxed slouch. For a moment Sam felt relief at finding another person here – and then the man made eye contact with him through the windows, and Sam felt his entire body go cold, as if he’d been submerged completely in icy water.

“Sam?”

He hadn’t realized he’d made any sound until he felt Dean’s hand on his knee, and looked up to see his brother looking at him with worry written on his face. “It’s – I don’t know, he just looked at me,” Sam said, heart rate picking up. “He just looked at me and I felt like I was—” _Dead_. He didn’t say that out loud.

Dean took his hand off Sam’s knee to put it on his face. “Shit, Sam, you’re freezing,” he said. “Are you okay?”

In response, Sam just shrugged. He was beginning to shiver a little. “I’ll be fine,” he said, though he wasn’t sure. From the look on Dean’s face, Dean wasn’t either. “Let’s just go talk to him, see what he knows?”

“Okay,” Dean said, still looking unconvinced. “But if you’re not feeling better, case or no case, we’re getting out of here.”

“Fine,” Sam acquiesced. He didn’t want to leave this alone, whatever it was, but he wasn’t going to be of much use to anyone if he could barely stop himself from shaking so hard his teeth chattered.

The man was still watching them. Sam kept his eyes away from the man’s, even when Dean parked the Impala in front of the medical center and got out. Sam followed a moment later.

The second he stepped out of the car, he felt the air press down on him, hot and heavy. The feeling of having to struggle to breathe was back, and did nothing to improve matters. Sam took a deep breath, inhaling as much as he could, and still felt like it was not enough.

“Hey,” Dean said carefully.

The man focused on him. Sam saw the exact moment their eyes met – Dean shuddered, and took a little step back, and Sam knew he was cold too.

This wasn’t good.

“I’m Agent Dean Smith,” Dean said when the man made no move to speak. “And this is my partner, Agent Sam Wesson.”

The man looked between the two of them. “I am… Jason.” He sounded a little unsure of his own name.

“Okay, uh, Jason,” Dean said, and Sam could see he was beginning to shiver, too. Jason, however, showed no sign that he was aware of the effect he was having. “Do you live here?” Dean asked him.

Jason tilted his head. “In a manner of speaking,” he said. The way he spoke was strange, like he was testing the words on his tongue.

“Uh, okay,” Dean said. He took another little step away from Jason, almost without realizing. “Do you know what happened here?”

“Murder,” said Jason promptly.

Sam’s eyebrows went up. “Murder?” he asked.

Jason turned to look at him, and Sam took an unconscious step closer to Dean, trying his best not to make eye contact. Something about his piercing blue eyes in the middle of a very average face was just… incredibly off-putting, and Sam couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was.

“Murder,” Jason said again.

“So everyone was murdered?” Dean asked.

Jason turned to look at him. It was creepy, the way he turned his whole body towards whichever one of them was speaking, instead of facing them both like a normal person. Sam began to suspect that he wasn’t quite human.

“Leave,” Jason said. “You have no business here.”

“Were you – were _you_ murdered?” Sam asked softly.

Jason turned back to him so suddenly that Sam didn’t have time to look away. This time when their eyes met Sam gasped, loud, and so sudden that Dean flinched. “I was not,” Jason said, but Sam barely heard him; it felt like his heart was encased in ice and his lungs were turned to stone.

“Sammy?” Dean sounded scared. “Sam!”

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” Sam managed, reaching out to grasp at Dean’s shirt, other hand pressed over his heart. “I just – I need a minute—”

He took several shaky breaths, attempting to get his heart rate as close to normal as possible. It was hard, what with his lungs barely responding no matter how hard he tried, but he managed somewhat.

“Sammy?”

“I’m okay,” Sam said again, and straightened. “Hey – where’s Jason?”

They both looked around, but there was no point; they were quite alone. It was like Jason hadn’t ever been there. There wasn’t so much as a boot print.

“Son of a bitch,” cursed Dean. “Fuck this, Sammy, get in the car.”

Dean handed him a blanket when they were in the car, and turned the heat up as high as it would go. “Don’t know what the fucker did to me,” he was saying as he buttoned up his jacket. “Feel like I’ll never be warm again.”

Sam just nodded, wrapping the fleece blanket around himself and holding it closed over his chest. “I don’t think he’s human.”

“You don’t say,” Dean said sarcastically. “Whatever he is, he’s not telling us everything he knows.”

“You think maybe he’s the one that did all this?” Sam questioned. “I mean, he kept saying murder but also that he wasn’t the one who was murdered. Maybe he just did the murdering.”

“Okay, but then why would he just tell us?” wondered Dean.

Sam shrugged. “Beats me. What do we do now?”

“Let’s just go back to the motel,” Dean suggested. “We can figure out what he is and how to deal with him.”

“Okay,” said Sam.

It took them a few more minutes until Dean felt ready to drive again. It was the middle of June; by all means the heat in the Impala should have been unbearable by now, and yet Sam felt like it was nowhere near enough. Someone could have punted him into the sun directly and it still would not have been enough. The chill went not just bone-deep, but right into his soul; it felt like every atom of his being was frozen in place, and his body was too heavy for him.

He melted back into the seat, taking care to stay away from the window and the cold glass, and as close to Dean as possible without hindering his driving. He was cold, so damn cold, and he knew Dean was too, but just being near him felt safer, just having him close by made Sam feel like he was going to be warm again.

The feeling dissipated as instantly as it came; Sam caught movement out of the corner of his eye and his hand flew to grip Dean’s wrist in a wordless plea to stop. The car screeched to a halt and Dean turned to look at Sam, concerned, but Sam just said, “Look,” and pointed somewhere to his left.

Dean followed his gaze, and then went absolutely still. They watched in total silence as a boy who looked no older than sixteen walked calmly up to one of the trees lining the road. Something in Sam’s gut twisted when he saw the noose hanging from one of the branches. “Dean,” he said, voice tearing out of his throat, “Dean, we’ve got to stop him—”

Without waiting for Dean’s answer, he threw his door open and got out, running to the tree. “Hey!” he yelled. “Hey, stop! Stop!”

The boy paid him no mind. Sam skidded to a halt next to him and grabbed his arm, frantic – only to have his hand go right through it. The boy – spirit – was completely unfazed; ignoring Sam, he stepped up to the noose and put his head through it.

Sam’s breakfast rose to his throat. “No,” he said, even though he knew it was no use. “Please don’t—”

And then Dean was next to him, pulling him away, and so Sam missed the moment when the boy kicked the stool out from under him. One moment he was standing and the next he was flailing in the air, arms and legs jerking, and Sam could not look away.

It must have only been a few moments, but it felt like hours until the boy went still, before flickering out of existence. The noose remained; so did the stool.

“Shit,” said Dean, and then again, “Shit.”

Sam just turned away and threw up.

 

“What the fuck,” Sam said once they were back in the car. He took the bottle of water that Dean handed him, but didn’t drink from it. “What the fuck.”

“Rinse your mouth, your breath stinks,” was Dean’s reply.

Sam levelled a look at him before doing as he was told because, yeah, his breath did stink. He rinsed his mouth out and then took a long drink, putting down the bottle only when it was empty.

“Better?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” replied Sam. “Death echo?”

“Looked like it. Fucking creepy shit. Can’t get used to ‘em no matter how many times you see ‘em.” And it was true; there was just something incredibly disturbing about witnessing someone’s last moments over and over again that Sam couldn’t shake off no matter how many times he’d had to deal with it before.

“Jason said murder,” Sam said. “But the death echo… the kid killed himself. Definitely more than one spirit.”

“Gotta be,” agreed Dean.

“And something else,” added Sam.

“That Jason dude’s got to be involved somehow,” Dean said. “Just can’t figure him out, man. The way it felt when he looked at me. Fuck.” He looked shaken just thinking about it, and on impulse Sam reached over and patted his knee.

“We’ll look it up back in the motel,” he said. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

But they hadn’t gone more than a few meters when Dean stopped the car again. This time it was Sam who followed Dean’s gaze.

There was more than one death echo.

A middle-aged woman was looking at something neither of them could see, her hands held out as if she was begging. Sam and Dean watched as she took several steps backwards in the middle of the road, before tripping over nothing and falling on her butt. A moment later a large splotch of blood appeared on her abdomen, and some more began dripping from her lips. They watched, transfixed, as she collapsed sideways, went still, and flickered out of existence.

“What the—” began Dean, but stopped at once.

A third spirit had appeared; this one was a man, fury carved into his face, a knife in his hand as he bore down on someone they couldn’t see. It took Sam a moment to realize this must be the man who’d killed the woman. He watched as the man leaned down and stabbed thin air, before dropping the knife and stepping backwards, face morphing into horror. “No,” he mouthed, soundless, and then, “no no no no—” before his mouth opened wide in what had to be a scream. He fell to his knees on the road, next to the knife, and then, a look of resolute determination on his face, took the knife again and slit his own throat in a single, smooth motion.

Then he, too, vanished.

“Sam,” Dean said quietly. Sam tore his eyes from the spot where the man had been and looked to where Dean was pointing. There, on the side of the road, lay the knife, covered in old blood. Someone must have kicked it to the side after they’d moved the bodies.

But why? Why wouldn’t it be taken as evidence? Why would they just leave it there?

“Let’s get out of here,” Sam said, throat dry. His head was beginning to hurt, and his breakfast was threatening to make an encore appearance.

They saw dozens more death echoes on their way out of the town. It was like the first one had set the ball rolling, and now the whole town was filled with the spirits of the people who’d died in it. And going by sheer numbers alone, it looked like it _was_ the whole town that had died.

By the time they arrived at the motel, Sam was exhausted, headache threatening to spill over into a migraine, and Dean didn’t look much better himself. It was barely noon, and yet they both fell into bed, fully clothed, not even bothering to take their shoes off. Sam fell asleep with Dean’s hand on his wrist and his hand gripping Dean’s shirt, the warmth of Dean’s body reassuring him.

In his dreams Jake Talley stabbed him over and over again, and there was nothing he could do to stop the loop.


	5. Chapter 5

“Okay, one death echo, I get,” Sam said, later on that evening as they had their dinner. “But multiple death echoes? I’ve never heard of that.”

“And how does a whole town die and become vengeful spirits, anyway?” Dean wondered. “I mean, if everyone’s dead, who are the spirits killing?”

“Everyone’s dead _now_ ,” Sam pointed out. “They clearly weren’t when you read the article.”

“What could have happened in like, three days, then?” Dean asked.

“Do you think it could have started with one spirit?” Sam began, thinking the situation over as he spoke. “Like, one spirit that caused someone to kill a loved one and then off themselves, and then it sort of just… snowballed from there?”

“You mean one spirit powerful enough to do all this in three days?” Dean said. “That can’t have flown under the radar no matter how quickly it happened.”

“Or, maybe because everyone died so horrifically, the amount of vengeful spirits just increased exponentially,” Sam suggested. “And there was no one to salt and burn the bodies, so the spirits are stuck.”

Dean hummed thoughtfully under his breath. “I don’t know, Sam. It still doesn’t explain why no one caught wind of it until now. And if there was no one to salt and burn the bodies, then where did they go?”

“Right,” said Sam. “Shit.” He sighed. “I guess we could always ask Jason.”

“Not like we have another choice,” pointed out Dean.

“And if he doesn’t talk?”

Dean considered that for a moment. Then, “He’ll talk.” Firm, resolute. His brother wanted answers, and he was going to get them.

For better or for worse.

 

The town didn’t get any easier to roll into, even though this was their third time. It looked as deserted as always, and even eerier due to the fact that the setting sun was making shadows play everywhere. More than once Sam jumped, thinking he’d seen something, only for it to be a shadow.

Maybe they should have just come in the morning, but Sam was not about to voice that thought out loud. They’d both faced much worse than a ghost town after dark; it would be somewhat silly, in Sam’s opinion, to put off a case over something as mundane as nightfall.

They didn’t find Jason in front of the medical center. What they did find were more death echoes, so many that Dean had to drive through the ones on the road. Sam shuddered when the car went through a pair of girls re-enacting their own violent deaths. Even though Jason was nowhere to be seen, Sam could feel the cold returning, and maybe it was just because he was already spooked, but it felt worse than before.

“Dean?”

“Yeah, Sammy?”

“Are you cold?”

Dean turned to look at Sam, frowning. “No, not really. Haven’t gazed into Jason’s baby blues, so I’m good. Why?”

Sam bit his lip thoughtfully. “Nothing,” he said.

Dean wasn’t convinced. Probably the shivering. “You’re freezing,” he accused.

Sam sighed, and nodded, giving in. “Yeah,” he admitted. “Can’t figure out why.”

Dean’s frown deepened. “This can’t be good.”

Sam couldn’t help but scoff at the understatement. “Yeah, no shit,” he muttered. “Look, let’s just find Jason, ask him what the hell’s going on, and get this over with.”

“Sam,” Dean began, a warning in his tone.

“We can’t leave!” Sam said, protesting because he knew exactly what Dean was going to say. “Dean, look at this town, it’s a mess! Someone’s got to do something.”

“Why’s it have to be us?” Dean asked rhetorically, now looking irritated with the situation at hand.

“Because we’re already here,” Sam said. “Besides, you’re the one who found the case.”

“Yeah, and I thought it was a simple salt and burn,” Dean reminded him. “Clearly, it’s more than that!”

“Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out,” Sam said, and then went very still. The cold was back, trailing icy fingers down his body, freezing the air in his lungs. It felt like the blood in his veins was slowly and painfully turning to ice.

“Sam?” Now Dean sounded _really_ concerned.

“I think we’ve found Jason,” Sam said quietly, rubbing his arms uselessly.

Dean looked up, and sighed. “So we have.”

And there he was, sitting on a bench in the abandoned, overgrown park, watching them with those unnerving blue eyes. This time he didn’t have to make eye contact – all he had to was look at Sam, and Sam felt his body growing even colder.

“It’s getting worse,” he ground out, barely able to speak.

“Fuck,” said Dean. “Sammy—”

“Let’s talk to him,” Sam said, determined not to let Dean take them off the case. For a moment he thought Dean was going to argue, but then Dean just sighed and grabbed the fleece blanket from the back, draping it around Sam’s shoulders before getting out of the car.

“You,” he barked at Jason, striding towards him before Sam was even out of the car.

“Dean,” Sam began, exasperated, even though he could barely get words past his teeth at this point. The fleece blanket barely helped.

“Yes?” Jason said, infuriatingly calm, head tilted in Dean’s direction to show he was listening. Watching him look at Dean, Sam realized – in the few minutes total that they’d interacted with him, he hadn’t seen Jason blink even once.

“What the hell’s going on?” Dean barked, and Sam could see he was putting in significant effort to not look Jason in the eyes. He seemed unaffected by the proximity to him, which was good, but also raised questions – namely, why Sam was feeling like he’d just been sleeping in a freezer, for one.

“I am not sure what you are asking,” Jason replied, in his odd stilted way. His voice was accentless.

In lieu of answering, Dean pointed first to his trembling brother, and then to a spirit a few yards away that was busy drinking bleach over and over again. “Take your pick,” he said.

Jason paid the spirit no mind. Instead, he turned his head slightly to look at Sam, who was standing half behind Dean and against the Impala’s hood, trying to soak up the engine’s warmth and Dean’s body heat. The move was so unexpected that Sam didn’t look away in time, and caught yet another blast of Jason’s eyes.

His entire body went numb. It felt like he was _literally_ turning to ice, like some fairy tale or some shit. He tried to move, to touch his brother, but even twitching his fingers was excruciating. Even the cry of pain that was ripped from him felt like it was breaking him into shards on its way up.

Immediately Dean was by his side, arms around him, cursing when he felt how cold Sam’s skin was. “What the fuck, what the fuck,” he muttered. “Sam, Sammy, hey, what’s happening? What’s going on? _Answer me, you fuck_!” That last part, shouted, was directed at Jason, who was watching the whole thing go down with a blank, almost bored expression on his face.

“You two are going to be the last,” Jason said.

“The last to _what_?” Dean snapped. “Fuck, Sammy, you’re _cold_ —”

“The last to die,” Jason told him simply.

Dean’s hand came up to rest on the back of Sam’s neck, protective, reassuring. It should have been, at least. It should have been warm, and strong, and safe. And yet–

“Sam?”

The pain was unbearable now, felt too damn much like he was back in the Cage, even though Dean’s presence next to him told him he wasn’t. It was just getting harder to believe with each passing second, the agony shutting out what he knew to be reality.

Dean’s hand was no longer on his neck, and Sam exhaled, long and painful, curling in on himself as much as he could. He was kneeling on the ground next to the Impala, Dean on his knees next to him, hand hovering over him but afraid to touch.

“What’s happening to him?” Dean asked Jason, bluster replaced with fear.

Jason tilted his head. “What do you think?” Instead of elaborating, he knelt down in front of Sam, easily pushing Dean’s hands away. “Look at him,” he said, tipping Sam’s chin up with one hand, forcing Sam to look into his eyes.

Sam cried out again. Jason’s touch was _burning_ hot, like there was a fire burning just under his skin, too damn similar to Lucifer’s touch in the Cage. Dean shoved Jason, and then snapped his hand away as if he’d been burnt. Paying them no mind, Jason continued staring at Sam’s face. Sam continued feeling his gaze even after he’d closed his eyes. “He is going to die,” Jason told Dean, sounding very matter of fact. A moment later his hand fell away.

Sam opened his eyes just as Jason withdrew his arm, and got a glimpse of his wrists, normally hidden underneath his full-sleeved shirts. He could see the edge of a tattoo poking out, intricate dark swirls with light edges, moving every time Jason did – or independently.

And then it made sense.

“You’re a djinn,” Sam gasped out.

For the first time, Jason smiled. It was terrifying in its simplicity. “Yes,” he said, slow, satisfied.

“What the fuck kind of djinn does this?” Dean asked. He looked like it hurt not to be able to touch Sam, and it must’ve, especially after a lifetime of casual touching and weeks of more intimate contact.

“ _Ifrit_ ,” Sam said. “Right?” It hurt to form the words, even more to speak them, but he had to. For the sake of this town, and every dead person in it, he had to.

Jason’s smile grew wider, exposing his teeth. “I had heard you were good,” he said to Sam, shoving his hands in his pockets. Sam had to wonder how they would’ve looked, if anyone had been there to see them – three men, two on the ground, one standing over them looking for all the world like he was having a casual conversation.

“Did you do this?” Dean asked. “The death echoes?”

Jason – which couldn’t possibly be his real name – nodded.

“Why?” demanded Dean.

“It is amusing,” Jason replied. “They will continue this for the rest of eternity.”

It hurt to breathe, but Sam managed a shaky inhale. “Dean,” he said. “Dean, I’m—”

“Yeah, Sammy, I got you,” Dean said at once, totally ignoring Jason as he put his hands on Sam’s shoulders without thinking. The agony returned, razor-sharp, and Sam bit his lip so hard he drew blood.

Fuck, even his blood felt cold.

“Why the hell can’t I touch him?” Dean bellowed at Jason.

“He will die,” was Jason’s simple, cryptic response. It didn’t really answer anything, which was very typical. “And if you touch him, it will just speed up the process.”

“Why? Fuck you, _why_?” And now Dean just sounded helpless, and the pain Sam felt was an entirely different kind.

“It is amusing,” repeated Jason. “And when he dies, you will, too.”

Well, that was true, metaphorically or otherwise, though Sam was pretty sure Jason meant it more literally. Which, _fuck_.

He would have said something, but when he inhaled it hurt, it hurt so much, and the world was beginning to lose focus around the edges. His head was spinning from the lack of oxygen, and every little movement was fire on his skin, but he made himself grab the Impala’s fender and try to stand anyway, laboring, exhausting, jerky little movements that punched cries of pain from him with every twitch of his muscles.

And Dean just watched all of it, helpless, furious, hands fisted so tightly Sam was sure he must’ve broken skin with his nails. He looked like every single part of him wanted to reach out and touch his brother, to take care of him with his own hands and save him from whatever this was, and the fact that he couldn’t was destroying him on the inside.

“I’m coming back for you,” he promised Jason, voice shaking with suppressed rage. “I’m going to make you wish you were never poofed into existence, you sadistic son of a bitch.”

But Jason was no longer there.


	6. Chapter 6

If getting Sam in the Impala had been difficult, getting Sam back to the motel was next to impossible. It took close to half an hour, a litany of very creative curses from both Sam and Dean, and, though neither would ever bring it up again, plenty of frustrated tears on Dean’s part.

But finally Sam was in bed, feeling like his whole body was on fire, tears of pain leaking from his eyes and feeling like needles on his skin. The thick blanket Dean draped over him made no difference. All Sam wanted to do was curl up into a ball and pass out or die, but even that much movement felt like it was going to kill him. His heart was past the rapid pulse stage and was now struggling. Sam could feel every sluggish beat, his overtaxed heart working itself to pieces trying to move his blood through his frozen veins.

“I’m going to kill him,” Dean swore, for about the hundredth time. He was seated on the edge of the bed, facing Sam, looking like he wanted nothing more to touch him. There were dried tears on his face, and he looked absolutely wrecked, and it made Sam want to cry too, made him want to yell and rage against the thing that did this to them. Made him want to tear it limb from sorry limb.

“We have lamb’s blood in the car, I think,” Dean was saying when Sam came back to himself.

“No,” Sam rasped out. It felt like he was scraping his voice off the insides of his throat with a razor.

“Then _what_?” Dean sounded desperate.

“Is an _ifrit_ ,” Sam managed to say. His voice was breaking from the effort, almost incomprehensible in places. “Won’t die like – like regular djinn.”

“Then _how_?” Dean asked.

“Gotta bind it to something,” Sam told him. “Then destroy it. If that doesn’t work, there are some verses—” He broke off, breathing as deeply as he could, his heart jerking in his chest from exertion. It felt like he’d just run a marathon in Alaska while naked.

“Okay, wait, don’t talk,” Dean said, concern lining his face at the rattling sound Sam was making with each breath. “I’ll look it up, okay? Don’t talk. It’s okay.”

Unable even to nod, Sam just looked at his brother and hoped his eyes conveyed it all.

Dean smiled down at him, a sad little thing. “Yeah, I know,” he murmured, reaching out like he wanted to brush Sam’s hair out of his eyes. He stopped within an inch of Sam’s skin. “Fuck. I hate this. I hate this so much.”

“Me too,” Sam mouthed.

Dean withdrew his hand, holding it close to himself like he could physically restrain himself from touching Sam. “I’ll fix this, I swear,” he promised. “You’ll be fine, okay, Sammy?”

Sam just blinked. He was so tired. So fucking tired.

Dean sighed. “Get some rest, baby,” he said. “I’m gonna go look this fucker up.” He got up from the bed, and Sam immediately missed him, the reassuring weight of him, the dip in the mattress that meant he wasn’t alone.

But then a minute later Dean got back in again, sitting a foot away from Sam with his back against the headboard, laptop balanced on his knees. He scrolled in silence for a while, and Sam lay on his side and just looked at his brother, and wished, more than anything, that he could just reach out and touch him.

They’d always just taken this for granted, their ability to touch. Anything and everything they felt for each other – fondness, love, exasperation – had always been better expressed through touch than words. A hand on a shoulder or knee, a touch to the back, a shove or a nudge sometimes, even the occasional light-hearted (or sometimes not) punch. Sam had let himself get so used to it that now that he didn’t have it anymore, it felt like something important was missing within him, some part of his sanity that couldn’t be replaced with anything that wasn’t Dean. He’d never realized how much their relationship relied on tactility until that was no longer an option.

“Hey,” Dean said, and Sam let go of his thoughts to focus on his brother. Dean’s face was lit up by the laptop screen and lamp light, his cheekbones and nose highlighted in halogen blue and yellow. Sam ached to reach out.

“Find anything?” he asked instead, painstaking, voice bleeding raw.

“Yeah. Last time anyone came across an _ifrit_ was the 8th century,” Dean told him, turning the laptop screen towards him so he could see. “They’re made of smokeless fire, according to the lore, and have the power to manipulate things both in their dimension and ours. This one was terrorizing a village somewhere in – Persia, I think? South Asia, somewhere, basically, and a guy from Arabia bound him to a ring. That stopped him, but it meant he was under the guy’s control, and well, let’s just say the guy was ambitious, all right? Six more burnt villages and nine assassinated royals later, some other dude had enough, killed the douchebag, destroyed the ring. He was rewarded in riches and women, blah blah blah, the usual.” Dean shrugged. “Gonna have to look for the ritual to bind it, though.”

Sam closed his eyes. This, Dean sitting next to him in bed, telling him about the case they were working… it was like that morning a couple days earlier, when they’d been warm and safe in Dean’s room in the bunker. Sam would give anything, he thinks, to go back to that morning, when Dean had his fingers in Sam’s hair, when his touch was still a part of Sam, was safety and _home_ and not fire and agony—

“Get some rest,” Dean told him again, and Sam opened his eyes. Dean’s fingers twitching like he was only just barely resisting the urge to reach out. “I’ll fix this, okay? Don’t you worry.”

“Okay,” Sam whispered. It was all he could do, all he could say, because nothing else was going to wipe that look off Dean’s face. “Be careful, okay?”

“You know I always am,” Dean said. The joke fell flat; neither of them were in the mood to laugh at anything. Dean just sighed. “It’s gonna be okay, Sam.”

“Yeah,” was all Sam said, before closing his eyes again. He’d never been colder in his life.

 

Dean wasn't in the room when Sam woke up. His first thought was that Dean must have gone out to take care of the _ifrit_ by himself, but if that was the case, why did he still feel so cold?

Turning to his side to catch a glimpse of the clock on the motel wall was nothing less than a struggle, and Sam was winded by the time he’d managed to accomplish it. His breath came in small, laborious puffs, condensing in his face, heart beating erratically in his chest. Each second was an eternity.

It was around eleven p.m. Dean shouldn’t be in the ghost town at this time, all by himself. He didn’t have any backup, and if something went wrong he could _die_ , or worse, be stuck as yet another death echo. And Sam wouldn’t be able to help him, since he was stuck here in this bed unable to move without wanting to scream.

God, and he didn’t even know what Dean was planning on doing. He had no idea if Dean had found the binding ritual, or if he was even going with that, considering it wasn’t the only method to get rid of _ifrit_. He didn’t even know if any of them were even effective, considering _ifrit_ hadn’t been seen in hundreds of years.

Just their luck that they had to run into one, and a sadistic one at that, too.

In literally any other situation this case would have made Sam’s entire life. To see an _ifrit_ , something literally no one had done in centuries… even if it was an evil one. But they were rare, and Sam would have loved to meet one, to know more about it, and if possible to get more information on them directly from the source. He could almost picture Dean in his head, scoffing at him, fondly calling him a geek, rolling his eyes at Sam’s excitement but also watching at Sam out of the corner of his eyes like he couldn’t quite make himself admit that he liked seeing Sam excited over his nerd shit.

But the _ifrit_ they found was an evil piece of shit, and now Sam couldn’t even move, and Dean was all alone, facing him down in unfamiliar territory where anything could kill him, anything could go wrong, and Sam wasn’t there to help him. The idea made Sam want to scream, made him want to panic, want to get up and go out, and fuck how much it hurt.

Painstakingly he sat up in bed, breathing like he’d just run a marathon, every muscle in his body feeling like it was coming apart. He managed to get to his feet, teeth gritted against the pain so hard that his jaw hurt, hands curled into tight fists. He didn’t want to cry out and draw attention to himself – the last thing he needed was a concerned motel worker calling an ambulance or whatever.

Walking was painful. He put one foot in front of the other and for a sickening moment, thought he heard the crunch of shattering bones. There was definitely enough pain to feel like it, even though his legs weren’t broken, couldn’t be.

He’d been through worse, he reminded himself grimly. Compared to the Cage, this was _nothing_.

So he forced himself to put another foot forward, and then another. His vision was beginning to blur and tunnel from the exhaustion, but he could still see, and he could still move no matter how painfully, and as long as he was alive and conscious there was nothing to stop him from making his way to his brother.

But breathing got harder with every second that passed by, and Sam could hear his blood rushing in his ears, trying to keep him alive and not really managing, and the next thing he knew he was crashing to the floor, the impact jarring his very bones, setting his whole body on fire. His scream of pain was lost into the motel carpet, tears of pain running down his face as he panted, waiting for the pain to subside to a manageable level.

It didn’t, it refused to go down, and Sam was left to lie there on the rough carpet, hearing his heartbeat slow down, his breathing get worse, the world spinning every time he tried to focus on it. _You have to get to Dean_ , he told himself. _You have to help Dean_. But his right shoulder was on fire and he wondered if something was broken, but he couldn’t really tell because _everything_ hurt and it was impossible to pinpoint a single source.

And then Dean’s voice was in his head, saying, “Get some rest, baby,” and he sounded so gentle, so full of love, and how could Sam not listen? How could not respond to his brother when he spoke like that, like Sam was the whole world and nothing else could even hope to matter in comparison? Every cell, every nerve in his body was wired to respond to that voice, to Dean, no matter what.

He closed his eyes. Dean said he’d take care of it, so he would.

 

He woke up to the feeling of warm hands on his skin. He’d know that touch anywhere, he’d know it in life or death, no matter what.

“Dean?” he tried to say, but nothing came out.

But it was Dean, this he knew for sure.

He tried to open his eyes, to see for himself, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t move anything, and it took him a moment to realize he was essentially trapped in his own body, powerless and helpless.

The temptation to panic was extremely strong, but Sam resisted it. He had no other choice; panicking wasn’t going to help, and as it was he could barely breathe. A panic attack on top of everything could possibly kill him.

 _Think_ , he told himself, frantically trying to make himself functional enough to figure out what was happening. _Think think think_ —

He was moving – no, being moved. He was held against something warm. He could feel a strong pulse, definitely not his considering his heart was next to useless at the moment. And there was something warm on his face. Something wet.

And then he heard a sob.

Dean was crying.

The sound went straight to Sam’s useless heart, and it _hurt_ , it hurt just to hear, and Sam wanted to scream, he wanted to touch his brother, to tell him he was alive, he was still there, he wasn’t ever going to leave Dean, never—

“I’m so sorry,” Dean said, and his voice was trembling, and another tear fell on Sam’s face. “Sammy, I’m so sorry. Fuck.”

 _Dean_ , Sam wanted to scream. _Dean, it’s okay, I’m alive, I’m alive, you’re not alone, I won’t leave you, Dean—_

But he couldn’t move, and Dean couldn’t hear him no matter how much he screamed in his head. Sam could hear Dean’s heart thump against his chest, could feel the way Dean’s arms trembled around him, not from his weight but from grief, and he _hated_ the _ifrit_ , hated him in a way he’d never hated anything before.

Nothing that made Dean hurt like this deserved to live a second longer than necessary.

But there was nothing Sam could _do_ , he couldn’t even move, couldn’t do so much as open his eyes to let his brother know he was alive—

The air was freezing. The kind of freezing you only got in open air in the middle of the night.

Sam smelled freshly dug earth, and his heart sped up despite itself.

_No._

Dean’s grip on Sam tightened to the extent it was painful. More tears splashed down on Sam’s face, and Sam could feel the vibrations of Dean’s sobs in his chest. “Sammy,” he was saying, over and over again. “Sammy I’m so sorry, I never should have left you, I’m sorry—”

Every second that passed by made Sam want to scream. He would have cried, if he could have.

And then Dean was quiet. Dean was quiet, and Sam couldn’t see why, and the overwhelming silence was almost worse than the crying. Before Sam could figure out what was happening, he felt himself being lifted again, and then gently lowered into something soft.

 _No._ No no no no no this was bad. This was _really, really bad_.

“It’s okay, Sammy,” Dean murmured, almost as if he could read Sam’s mind. “It’s okay. I’ve got you now. Had to steal this stupid thing, and fuck, it’s heavy, but it’s okay. Don’t want you to be uncomfortable, huh? It’s okay, Sammy, it’s okay.”

No, it really was not fucking okay, but it wasn’t like there was any way for Sam to convey this to his big brother, who did not seem to be thinking straight. For one, he was going to bury Sam, not salt and burn him—

Oh, shit, he was going to bury Sam, _he was going to bury Sam_ , which meant that Sam was going to slowly asphyxiate to death in a coffin six feet under the earth, _because he couldn’t move and Dean was going to bury him_.

Now would be an excellent time to panic, if Sam could. He wished he could, because that would mean his heart was beating and he was breathing and Dean could see or hear that, and Dean would know Sam wasn’t dead, he wasn’t alone, they still had each other.

He made an almighty effort to move, to do something, _anything_ , even if it was just a twitch of his finger or his eyelids, even if it was something very little, so Dean would _know_ , and he wouldn’t bury Sam, fuck, he was going to _bury him alive_. And yeah, Sam would die, and then Dean was going to kill himself too, and fuck, fuck, they couldn’t die, they _couldn’t_ , they’d only just gotten together, they still needed to find Mom and Jack, and shit, it wasn’t supposed to end like this, not like this, not with Dean burying Sam while not knowing he was alive—

It seemed impossible to believe that just a few days ago Dean had made them dinner, called it a date, that he’d been so awkward and shy about it, and they’d spent the night in Dean’s room after that, where Sam always slept better than anywhere else barring the Impala. It seemed impossible to believe that just yesterday morning he’d been all right, they’d been talking and discussing the case and Dean had had his hand on Sam’s knee as he drove, and Sam had leaned into Dean’s side—

“Just one more day, Sammy,” Dean said, and Sam’s heart stuttered. “Just one more day, just let me finish this, and I’ll be with you, okay, Sammy? We’ll be together. It’s okay, Sammy. You won’t be alone, I won’t let you be. I’m on my way, all right? Don’t be scared.”

Fuck, just when Sam thought it couldn’t get any worse, the universe went and proved him wrong. In the worst possible way. And yet it made sense, it was twisted and fucked up and so totally unsurprising, because if it was Dean who was the first to die, what else would Sam have done? As if there were any options that didn’t involve either bringing him back or joining him. As if they’d ever been able to live without each other.

His train of thought was brought to an abrupt halt when he felt the warmth of Dean’s breath on his face – and he couldn’t smell anything, which meant Dean was sober, fuck, he was going to remember _everything_ – and then, a moment later, Dean’s lips on his forehead, gentle and soft and so full of love.

“I’m not gonna say goodbye,” Dean whispered. “I promised you that you were never gonna be alone. I’ll see you later, okay, Sammy? Just give me a little while to sort things out, and I’ll be there. Bye, Sammy. Love you.”

It was not the first time he was saying it, but it was the first time that Sam was hearing it from his brother’s lips reframed in the context of what they were to each other now as opposed to what they’d been before. And it made him want to cry, made him want to rail against the unfairness of it all, because this was not how he’d imagined hearing it. This was not what he’d wanted, all those times he’d wished for Dean to say it, this wasn’t what he’d hoped for, and fuck, he hated everything so much, he hated the whole universe, and himself for being so fucking helpless in the face of his brother’s grief.

A moment later the coffin lid slammed shut, and Sam’s heart skipped a painful beat. This was it, this was it, he was being buried alive and there wasn’t a thing he could do to stop it, Dean was burying him alive, _Dean was burying him alive_ , and Sam was going to end up dead anyway because _he was being buried alive_ , and he could see no way out of this situation.

It was the _ifrit_ , _had_ to be. Nothing else could ever make Dean give up on him so quickly, and do irrational shit that went against everything he’d been taught, like the basics of a hunter’s funeral, like _take care of Sammy_. The twisted little fuck probably thought it was all so _amusing_ , watching someone bury their brother who wasn’t dead, watching them commit suicide when they realized what they’d done. And Sam had no doubts in his mind that the two of them were going to be stuck here forever, reenacting their own deaths for eternity or until someone found a way to put them out of their misery.

And it was so _unfair_ , that if they had to die, he didn’t even have the comfort of telling himself they’d be together in Heaven. Instead what they got was to become the very things they hunted, with no way out, and probably no awareness of the fact, either. It was the worst thing he could imagine, and that was after he’d spent millennia in the Cage with two pissed off archangels.

He almost didn’t realize when Dean lowered him down into the grave, Dean was so soft with him. It was painful, the way his heart swelled with love for his brother for just exactly one second, before he heard the soft _thump_ and understood that Dean was now piling earth back on to him, and fuck, fuck, there was no way out of this. This was how he was going to die, after everything he’d done, after everything he’d been through. Buried alive by a brother who couldn’t think straight because of some ancient asshole djinn.

A few minutes later even the sound of Dean’s low grunts and soft sobs was muffled, and Sam knew that he was in the earth, he was buried and he was utterly _fucked_.

Ironically enough, it was only after Dean was gone and he was suffocating under the weight of six feet of dirt did Sam realize – his eyes were open. He could move, he could make sounds, and he was no longer cold. Whatever the djinn had done to him, it was no longer effective. Maybe the djinn’s curse only worked long enough for the person’s fate to be sealed, and once it was ensured that they’d die, the curse was broken. Whatever. Sam was beyond caring about the technical issues of the case.

“Dean,” he said, voice echoing damply in the small coffin, hoarse. ”Dean! _Dean_!” Yelling was painful; he did it anyway. Maybe Dean was still nearby, maybe he’d hear him.

 _Maybe_ was all Sam had to work with.

So he screamed, he screamed till his throat was hoarse, till it felt like he’d scraped his insides raw, till everything inside him bled, but Dean didn’t come, because Dean couldn’t hear him, Dean was too far away and he couldn’t do anything for Sam until the _ifrit_ let go of him.

Sam didn’t stop until he was physically unable to go on screaming.

Then the pain set in.


	7. Chapter 7

**And here, now:**

If Sam ever gets out of this, the _ifrit_ is going to die _so fucking painfully_. Right now, though, it seems the honor of dying painfully is all Sam’s; he’s been in the coffin for so long he’s lost track of time, and he can’t see shit in the absolute darkness that’s due to being six feet under. He’s also extremely aware of the fact that he is very close to asphyxiating to death, and the first half an hour of screaming Dean’s name didn’t help at all, in any way, and now he doesn’t have air _or_ Dean.

He is well and truly fucked, pardon his French.

 _Please_ , he thinks, desperate, not even sure what he’s begging for, who he’s asking. _Please_. All he knows is that the pain in his shoulder is so bad that someone could rip his arm off at the joint and he’d thank them; his throat hurts from the screaming; he can feel his pulse throbbing in his ears and his shoulder, heart trying to do its best despite how weak it is; lungs expanding and contracting as much as they can given all the stress they’ve been under; and none of it is going to matter in a few more minutes, because he’s going to be dead. He’s going to die here, all alone in the dark, with no one to hear him beg, no one to see him struggle, no one to wipe away his tears and tell him that it’s going to be okay.

Fuck, it doesn’t matter how old he gets, it doesn’t matter that he’s been through literal hell. He just wants his brother. He just wants Dean, and he’s never ever going to _not_ need his big brother. It doesn’t matter what he’s done, it doesn’t matter what Dean’s done, he’s always going to be Dean’s little brother, he’s always going to need Dean, and that holds true now more than ever, when he’s here all alone at the edge of his life.

 _Please_ , he thinks, and he’s been crying for a while now, silent tears running down his cheeks into the coffin lining. _Please, if anyone’s listening, I just want Dean. Please, I just need my brother. Please_.

He hasn’t prayed in years. Not since the Darkness, at least, not since he realized how uninterested Chuck was in all of them, how it would just be better if he didn’t ask because that way he wouldn’t get his hopes up. And even now he knows that Chuck probably isn’t listening. His prayer is just a whisper in a sea of voices, of the millions of devoted souls on this planet who kneel and pray, and even if Chuck could hear it, why would he listen? To Sam Winchester of all people?

And yet he keeps begging. _Please, please, please, I’ll do anything, please, I just want my big brother._

He can barely breathe. His head is so heavy, so full of pain, and his body feels disconnected from him. His chest barely rises when he tries to inhale. He can’t feel his arm anymore.

He’s dying. Scratch that, he’s closer to death than he is to life, and it’s only a matter of minutes now. And he’s not going to Heaven, he’s not going to see his brother ever again. His body is going to stay here in this heavy coffin his brother stole for him for some unfathomable reason, and he is going to decay, and his soul is going to remain tied to this dusty, dead town, and he is going to relive his death in an endless loop until he no longer remembers who he was when he was alive, until he is nothing more than sorrow and pain and horror, until someone hunts him down and finally destroys him.

He saved the world, once.

 

Dean wakes up with a start, in his motel room one town over. His arms ache from exertion, and he can’t figure out why. He smells like fresh earth.

Probably came back from a salt and burn, he thinks. He’d found them a case, right? He remembers being in bed next to Sam, telling him about it as Sam listened with his head resting against Dean’s thigh. He remembers the softness of Sam’s hair between his fingers when he’d touched it.

He remembers Sam. Sam, who should be nearby. Next to him, sleeping, curled up under the covers with just his head poking out, the way he is when Dean’s next to him. The way he is when he feels safe.

But the bed is empty, and Dean is alone, and his arms ache and so does his heart. Something’s wrong, and he’s alone in a bed that smells like Sam and also weirdly like pain, if pain had a smell.

He flicks on the lamp, and looks around the motel room and yeah, sure enough, no Sam. Which is weird. He distinctly remembers the two of them coming here together, remembers them together in this same bed, struggling to get some rest after the ghost town. He remembers—

God. Jason.

Sam was so cold, and he was _dying_ , and Dean had left him in bed and told him he was going to find a way to fix it. It’s coming back now – the lore said the _ifrit_ could be bound to objects, and owning that object made one the master of the _ifrit_ , and destroying it killed the _ifrit_. So Dean had found himself something to bind the _ifrit_ to, and he’d packed a duffel with things like a shotgun and a silver knife and lamb’s blood just in case, and he’d gone to the ghost town to confront Jason.

Alone.

At night.

It’s morning now.

_Fuck._

Tamping down the panic rising in his throat like bile, Dean forces himself to focus, to think back on last night. He went to confront Jason, and he found him casually watching death echoes near the school. Where _children_ had died violently. Dean remembers that Jason had been expecting him, had looked almost satisfied to see him, and positively gleeful when he’d realized what Dean was trying to do.

“You cannot bind me,” he’d said. “You do not know how. The only people who know how have been dead for centuries.”

It hadn’t stopped Dean from trying. He’d failed, though, and Jason had just laughed, a haunting sound that had echoed throughout the town.

And then he’d touched Dean. Just tapped him on the forehead, and Dean promptly became some kind of flying monkey, obediently getting back into his car and driving back to the motel. He can’t remember what he’d been thinking, just that he’d been really determined. Felt like there was something that needed to be done, as quickly as possible. Something really important.

His eyes fall in the shovel leaning against the wall next to the door. It is coated in dirt, the same dirt that’s on Dean’s boots and under his nails. So he’s definitely been digging, then, enough to exhaust him to the point he just fell into bed fully dressed.

The next thing he notices is his fully loaded gun, lying on the side table. This is not unusual; he always has a loaded gun nearby when he’s sleeping, just in case. Years of caution bordering on paranoia hammered into him by his hypervigilant father. Nothing out of the ordinary for him, or literally any other hunter.

But there’s a note next to it. He grabs it off the table to read it. It’s in his handwriting even though he can’t really remember writing it.

_I’M SORRY SAMMY I’M SORRY SAMMY I’M SORRY SAMMY_

Just that, over and over again. He can’t remember why he’d write that, unless—

His heart goes colder than it ever did when he’d looked at Jason.

He wouldn’t have written that unless he’d failed. Unless Sam—

The memory of what he was doing last night falls on him like a bag of bricks, and he makes a wounded sound, pain settling deep in his chest. Sam, fuck, he buried him, _he buried his brother_ , and he can’t even remember if he checked for a pulse before he did it, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —

He’s out of bed in seconds, almost tripping over his own feet in his haste to get to the car. His heart is beating so fast in his chest he can hear it in his ears, pounding, begging him to hurry, and he knows that if he stops moving even for a second he’s going to descend into panic and then he’ll just be utterly fucking useless.

He can’t remember the last time he drove the Impala as violently as he’s doing it now. He’s damn sure he’s gonna find scratches and dents and bent fenders later on and he truly doesn’t give a single fuck. The Impala is his baby, yeah, but she won’t matter if Sam isn’t there by his side. Nothing would matter if he’s not there.

It takes him some time to find the graveyard, because last night had been the first time he’d been in it and he still can’t recall all the details just yet. He leaves the car running in his haste, slamming the door so loudly the whole frame shakes, and running off into no specific direction before he realizes he can’t remember where exactly Sam’s buried.

Where exactly _he_ buried Sam.

He’s done this, he’s done it with his own hands, and he can’t keep pretending it’s just something that happened to Sam instead of something that was done to him by the person who claims to love him the most. All Dean can do now is hope that it’s not too late, even though there’s a tired voice in his head already telling him that the only way to fix this is to put his gun to his head and call it a day.

He walks past the graves as fast as he can, keeping an eye out for fresh earth, for anything that would tell him where Sam is. He finds two or three graves that look recent, but they all have gravestones (absently he notes the names of the first few victims of the _ifrit_ ), and he’s pretty sure Sam’s grave – God, he hates hates _hates_ this combination of words – won’t have a stone.

He finds it just when he’s beginning to panic; freshly turned earth, no stone, and something glinting on the ground. He doesn’t recognize it until he’s right on top of it, and when he does, his heart twists painfully in his chest – his amulet, lying discarded in the dirt. He can’t remember if he left it there on purpose or if it fell and he just didn’t notice.

He’ll worry about that later, though – he shoves the amulet back into his pocket (along with a fair amount of dirt but he doesn’t care), and grabs his shovel and gets to work. He’s never dug like this before, frantic and haphazard, flinging dirt everywhere and not giving a shit that some of it is raining back down on him and getting in his hair and clothes and shoes. All he can think of is Sam, so close and just out of reach, and he’s alone, he’s alone in the dark and maybe Dean’s too late, he’s too late and all of this is for nothing—

The shovel hits something hard. Dean stops breathing for a moment, and then his heart kickstarts itself and he begins digging harder, until there’s enough clearance for him to get down into the hole and throw the lid of the coffin (solid oak, what the fuck had he been _thinking_?) open.

And there he is, his brother, still and lifeless, irrefutable proof that Dean’s fucked up beyond compare this time, fucked up so bad that he’s not sure he can even fix it. Sam doesn’t look like he did last night; there are very obvious signs of a struggle. Bile rises in Dean’s throat when he realizes this means that he’d buried Sam alive. There’s no other way to interpret the scratches on the lid of the coffin, Sam’s mangled fingers and bruised knuckles, the drops of blood on his clothes, and – fuck – the dried tear tracks on his face.

Hand trembling, Dean reaches out to touch his face.

His heart stops.

Sam’s skin is still warm. He could almost be sleeping.

He could be _alive_.

Dean’s fumbling fingers find that spot on Sam’s neck and press down, lips uttering feverish prayers to no one, begging for signs of life. For a long, frightening moment, nothing – and then Dean feels a weak stutter, a tired beat of Sam’s heart, just on the verge of giving up but not quite there yet.

He’ll be damned if he lets it get there.

His hands are still trembling, and his whole body’s deathly-cold, but there is nothing unsteady about the way Dean kneels over his brother, ear to his heart as he silently begs for Sam to take a breath. _Come on, Sam, come on_ , he thinks, and then he says it out loud. Maybe Sam can still hear him.

Nothing happens.

“Sammy, please, _please_ , come on,” Dean begs. “Fuck, Sam—”

He interlocks his fingers, positions himself as best as he can in the narrow space, and begins chest compressions. He’s going to get Sam breathing no matter what it takes, no matter how long he has to kneel in the damp earth.

“Come on, come on, _come on_ —”

He feels something break under his hands. “Fuck,” he curses, but carries on. Sam will survive broken ribs; he won’t survive being buried alive if Dean does nothing. So Dean just repositions his hands, makes sure he’s not hurting Sam any more than absolutely necessary, and continues CPR like his life depends on it.

”Please,” he whispers between breaths. “Please, Sam, please—”

Is it just him, or does Sam’s skin have a bluish tinge to it? Maybe it’s the dull early morning light, maybe it’s the shadows of the grave, maybe it’s just his overactive, guilt-wracked imagination—

“I’ll do anything,” he pleads. “Sam, please, just – wake _up_ , I swear I’ll – _anything_ , Sammy, _please_ —”

He doesn’t know if Sam’s listening. All he can do is keep going, keep trying to bring his brother back, because if this doesn’t work, there’s nothing left to live for. Not Mom, not Jack – and he can hate himself for thinking it all he wants, but it’s true. A choice between Sam, and everyone else? Sam, Sam always, in a heartbeat, forever until he’s nothing but decayed flesh and empty bones—

Sam jerks back to life, gasping for breath, body thrashing underneath Dean as his eyes fly open. Dean gets off him at once, giving him as much space as he can, knowing that Sam doesn’t associate unexpected weight on him with anything good. He keeps a hand on Sam though, hoping it will anchor his brother, and tries to focus on Sam through the sound of his own heartbeat thundering in his ears.

Sam’s hand flies up to grab at Dean’s shirt, and Dean lets himself be used as support as Sam struggles into an upright position, crying out in pain as the movement jars his ribs and shoulder. “Hey, hey, Sammy, hey, it’s okay,” Dean finds himself saying, repetitive but reassuring (or so he hopes), relieved beyond compare at the fact that Sam’s eyes are open, he’s _alive_ , he’s here—

“Dean,” Sam gasps out, fingers tightening in Dean’s shirt. He moves a bit too suddenly to look at Dean, and winces, his hand immediately going to cradle his ribs.

“Ah, yeah, sorry about that,” Dean says. “You weren’t breathing, I had to do CPR.”

Sam considers this for a moment, looking confused, and then slumps into Dean, head falling on to Dean’s collarbone. “I thought – you weren’t gonna come,” he mutters.

Inadvertently Dean’s arms go around him, careful not to aggravate his injuries but firm nevertheless. “I’m here now,” he says, and finally allows his tears to fall.

“The _ifrit_ —”

“He touched me,” Dean says. “The binding didn’t work and he touched me, and fuck, I don’t know what came over me, all I knew was that I had to do what he wanted me to do. And nothing made any fucking sense – I went back to the motel, and you were on the floor, and I thought – I thought—” He doesn’t complete it; he can’t. There are no words to express the horror he’d felt at seeing Sam collapsed, and the renewed dread when he remembers he didn’t even check for a pulse.

“I’m so sorry, Sammy,” he finishes, voice quiet and raw. “Fuck, I _buried_ you, and I didn’t even _check_ – I’m so sorry. I know it’s not enough, I _know_ , I just—”

“Shut up,” Sam murmurs wearily. Dean can feel his lips quirk into a smile, even if it’s just a little one. “You’re here now.”

“Yeah,” he says, throat dry. “I’m not going anywhere, okay? I’m not leaving you. Fuck, I’m not _ever_ letting you out of my sight.”

“That’s gonna get inconvenient real fast,” Sam points out, and he sounds _so_ tired.

Dean laughs, but only a little. His chest still hurts from everything. “Come on, Sammy,” he murmurs into Sam’s hair, giving him one careful little squeeze before letting go. “We gotta get you out of here, and then we gotta kick that bastard’s ass.”

“Binding didn’t work?” Sam asks.

Dean frowns. “Yeah, I told you it didn’t.” It occurs to him that Sam’s probably still feeling the effects of oxygen deprivation, and on top of that, he’s in pretty bad shape physically. “Okay, you know what, let’s get you fixed up, and then we can worry about the _ifrit_ , okay?”

Sam just mumbles something unintelligible, leaning back into Dean.

“Hey, no, not yet, okay?” Dean says, as gently as he can, and wraps his arms around Sam to help him stand. “We gotta get out of here, okay? You can rest in the car. Come on, Sammy.”

“I’m so tired,” Sam says weakly. “I thought you weren’t gonna come.”

Dean’s heart aches. It doesn’t get any easier to hear – quite the opposite, in fact. “I’ll always come for you,” he promises. Doesn’t even have the heart to laugh at the unintended double meaning behind his words. “Come on, Sammy. Let’s get out of this place.”

“How?” asks Sam, bracing himself with a hand on Dean’s arm and looking up. Even when standing, the tops of their heads barely reach the edge of the grave.

Dean considers this for a moment. Then, gently, he takes Sam’s hand off his arm, squeezing his fingers once before letting go, and says, “I’ll pull you up, okay. I’ll be careful, I promise.”

Sam bites his lower lip. “Okay,” he says in the end, and he sounds so trusting that it makes Dean’s heart feel full. Here he is, injured shoulder and ribs, knowing that if Dean screws this up he’s going to be in a lot of pain; and yet, trusting Dean anyway, trusting that Dean won’t do anything to hurt him. And all this right after everything he’s been through _because_ of Dean.

Dean smiles at Sam, and waits for Sam to return it before he pulls himself out of the grave. He looks back down when he’s kneeling next to it, and immediately wishes he could forget this image – Sam, standing in his own grave, looking tired and vulnerable and heartbreakingly young. Now that there’s some distance between them, it’s easier for Dean to note how his right arm is hanging strangely limp by his side even though it doesn’t look broken. Collarbone break, probably, realizes Dean. Must have happened when he’d fallen, just before Dean had found him in the motel.

He’s going to have to be extremely careful now, to pull Sam out without aggravating his injuries further. He takes a moment to try and figure out the logistics of the situation – if he grabs Sam’s uninjured arm and tries to pull him out, there’s a very real chance he’ll dislocate it at the joint. He considers hopping back in and giving Sam a boost and letting him pull himself out with his right arm, but one look at Sam and he lets go of that idea immediately. Sam doesn’t look strong enough to kill a bug right now, let alone focus his body weight on just one arm.

“Okay,” he says in the end. “Sammy, if I grab your right arm, can you get a foothold and help me out?” If they divide the force between them – Dean pulling and Sam pushing himself up – they might just do it.

Sam frowns, and looks down at the wall of dirt in front of him. “I think so,” he tells Dean a moment later.

“Let’s try it, then,” Dean says, and refuses to consider the alternative. If this doesn’t work they’re gonna be fucked, which is why it _has_ to work.

“Okay,” Sam says, and raises his right arm. Dean grabs his forearm, but doesn’t apply any force just yet. He waits for Sam to find a spot and jam his foot in it. A few seconds later Sam braces himself, grip tight on Dean’s forearm, and nods.

Dean pulls; Sam pushes. It’s no small effort, and Sam is making these little pained noises that feel like needles in Dean’s chest, but then Sam’s scrambling over the side and Dean is sitting back, and then Sam’s collapsing in Dean’s arms and gasping for breath, face half-pressed into Dean’s neck.

“I’ve got you,” Dean murmurs, wrapping his arms around Sam again. “I’ve got you, Sammy. I’ve got you. It’s okay.”

He lets Sam have a few moments to catch his breath, and feels inordinately pleased when he feels Sam’s pulse thundering just under his skin, irrefutable proof that his brother’s alive. The sun’s higher up in the sky now, and even this stupid fucked up ghost town looks brighter, and Dean’s shirt is sticking to his back with sweat but he can’t bring himself to care.

“Let’s get you to the car,” he says when Sam’s steadied himself some. “I’ll fix you up, okay? I’ll take care of you.”

Sam doesn’t say anything. For a moment Dean’s afraid he’s passed out, but then he takes a deep breath, fingers tightening in Dean’s shirt, and says, “Okay.”

God, he sounds so tired. Dean stands and helps him up, keeping an arm around his waist and making sure not to cause any more pain. It occurs to him as he slowly walks Sam back to the car that Sam’s skin is cool, yes, but not _cold_ , not like he’s freezing from the inside out, not like it was before, and that Dean is able to touch him and it’s not hurting him. A wave of gratitude rolls over him and he leans over to press his lips to Sam’s cheekbone just because he _can_ , and smiles when Sam makes a startled little sound.

“What for?” Sam asks.

“Nothing,” Dean says, still smiling.

He’s left his shovel at the graveside and can’t bring himself to care. As if he’s ever going to touch it again anyway, not when it’s the instrument he used to bury his living brother.

“Not your fault, you know,” Sam says a moment later, and for a moment Dean genuinely considers the possibility that Sam can read his mind.

“What?”

“Not your fault,” Sam repeats. They’re almost at the car now; Dean can hear it, engine still running, his baby patiently waiting for her humans to return.

Dean almost stops short. “Sam, I—” _Say it_ , he tells himself. There’s no hiding from this. “Sam, I _buried_ —”

“The _ifrit_ made you do it,” Sam interrupts, sounding determined despite how fucking exhausted he must be. “Don’t blame yourself, Dean. No point.”

“Sammy—”

“ _Please_.”

Low blow. Low fucking blow, because Sam knows that Dean can’t say no to him when he sounds like that. Little shit’s playing it up for all it’s worth, and Dean knows he’s doing it because he can’t stand the thought of Dean blaming himself. Stupid idiot, fuck, Dean loves him so much.

He just sighs. “Fine, Sammy. Whatever you say.”

Sam grins a little at that. “Yeah,” is all he says.

They’re at the car now. Dean helps Sam lean against the side of the car, and mentally catalogs every injury on Sam as he does it – aside from the fractures, he’s got bruises all over his forearms too, clear signs of struggling. His fingertips are bloody and lacerated, and they’re probably not going to be much use for a while.

Sam’s voice interrupts his thoughts. “The _ifrit_ isn’t showing up, and that’s bothering me,” Sam murmurs, turning his face away from the sun. After all that time in the pitch dark, it’s probably hurting his eyes something bad.

Dean frowns. “What’s he playing at?” he wonders.

Sam gives him a one-shouldered shrug. “Don’t know,” he says. “Didn’t he say he did all this because he found it amusing?”

“Yeah,” says Dean. “So shouldn’t he be, I don’t know, pissed off now that the show’s over?”

“Is it though?” questions Sam. “I mean, you got me out, but maybe he’s not done with us yet.”

“I am not,” comes Jason’s voice, and both of them turn to find him standing there, looking for all the world like’s been part of the conversation all along.

“How long have you been here?” demands Sam, but Dean’s not planning on small talk.

“You son of a bitch,” he growls. “You _motherfucker_. You made me _bury him_ with my own hands. You knew he was alive, didn’t you? You _bastard_.”

Jason’s shoulders twitch in what seems to be his version of a shrug. “I wanted to see what would happen,” he said simply.

Dean half already half-launched himself at Jason when he feels Sam’s hand on his arm and stops himself, breathing hard from barely restrained fury. “What?” he snaps at Sam.

“You touch him again, who knows what he’ll make you do?” Sam says, pulling on Dean’s sleeve until Dean gets the message and takes a step back.

“He is right,” Jason says, nodding towards Sam, who looks away. “There is no need for that now,” he continues. “Nothing will happen to you if you look at me.”

“Forgive me if I don’t really trust you,” Sam retorts.

“Understandable,” agrees Jason. “Your caution is in vain, though. You cannot stop me if I try to do something.”

“Just fucking _try_ —” begins Dean heatedly but stops once more when Sam tugs at his sleeve in warning. “Sam—”

“You’re the first _ifrit_ who’s been spotted in centuries,” Sam says. “Why?”

Jason tilts his head at Sam, evidently considering if he should let himself be engaged in conversation or not. Sam keeps looking back patiently, eyes focused somewhere near his ears instead of his eyes, and Dean wonders uneasily if this is going to work, and what he’ll do If it all goes sideways. Again.

Finally Jason seems to think there must be no harm in replying, and says, “We do not usually leave our dimension. There was no reason to, until recently.”

“What was the reason?” Sam asks, but he looks apprehensive, like he already knows the answer.

“ _Shaitan_ ,” answers Jason, and Sam’s fingers tighten imperceptibly in Dean’s jacket. It hasn’t escaped Dean’s attention how Sam’s still got his hand on his arm. He’d like to think it’s for reassurance, but has to grudgingly admit the likelier reason is because Sam doesn’t want him to go flying off attacking _ifrit_ s recklessly.

“ _Shaitan_ ,” Sam repeats flatly. “You mean Lucifer.”

“Yes,” Jason says. “He is free again. My kind cannot wreak havoc in your dimension as we please; the other djinn will not let us. They keep us trapped, and punish us if one of us goes rogue. But now that _Shaitan_ is free, they are busy with those of us who want to join him. Too busy to notice or care if an _ifrit_ or two goes missing.”

“And you?” Sam asks. “You don’t want to join Lucifer?”

Jason shakes his head. It is a jerky side to side movement, and looks extremely unnatural. “I have no cause. I just came here to… stretch my legs, so to speak.”

“Sounds like you’ve got something else planned,” Dean says, joining the conversation for the first time. “Let me guess. Some more death and destruction.”

“Obviously,” Jason replies, turning to look at him. He hasn’t blinked even _once_ , and it’s so fucking weird. Dean kind of wants to rip his eyes out with his bare hands. “This town was merely the beginning, a way for me to see what I can do.”

“Why, though?” asks Sam.

“Why not?” counters Jason. “I am an _ifrit_ , and not a good one. What more reason do I need?”

“There are good _ifrit_?” Dean asks incredulously.

“There is good and bad in every creature, and many more in between,” Jason says. “I find it true for every species I have come across.”

“And your appearance?” Sam asks. “I’ve never seen djinn look like that.”

“I am not merely a djinn, I am an _ifrit_ ,” Jason reminds him. “I chose the most non-threatening face I could find.”

“Yeah, most people are really put off by fiery sonsabitches, I’ve found,” Dean comments. “Are we done talking? Because _damn_ , I’m tired of your face.”

“You have a lot of nerve,” began Jason, in his flat intonation, but Dean cut him off.

“Yeah, I wasn’t talking to you, asshole,” he says. “Sammy?”

“Yeah, we’re done talking,” Sam says. He sounds – well, not stronger, but a lot more determined now, a firmness to his tone that had been missing before. He’s standing a little straighter too, no longer looking away from the sun or even from Jason. Dean realizes he can't feel Sam’s hand on his arm either, and wonders when Sam took it off.

Jason looks amused at them, the expression severely out of place on his borrowed face. “You cannot bind me,” he reminds them.

“It’s not the only way to get rid of you,” Dean says. “Is it, Sammy?”

“Nope, it’s not,” Sam answers.

“There is nothing you can do, short of summoning a superior _ifrit_ ,” Jason tells them, and he sounds almost smug. “You do not know any of the words that can be used to banish me back to my dimension.”

“Oh, _don’t_ we?” Sam says, and Dean feels a sudden spike of pride, hot and sharp, at the sound of his brother’s voice. That’s him right there, that’s his Sammy, snarking right before he’s about to gank some son of a bitch. Dean’s so fucking glad he gets to see this again.

(Not for purely selfless reasons, though – there’s something incredibly arousing about Sam being a badass, just something about the way Sam carries himself in a fight or while chanting that makes Dean want to press him into the nearest wall and utterly debauch him—)

“No,” Jason says, and for the first time there is a tone to his voice, something incredibly snake-like and disbelieving.

“Yes,” says Dean. “You really think I’d come out here with no backup options? You think I’d let you use me to hurt my brother, and not find a way to kill you for it? Damn, Sammy, monsters these days just keep getting stupider and stupider, don’t they?”

“To be fair to him, he’s been away for centuries,” Sam points out, quirking a tired grin at his brother.

“I don’t really feel like being fair to him,” Dean points out. “You know the verses, right, Sammy? The ones you mentioned?”

Sam nods. “Yeah.” He begins reciting them, not stumbling over the pronunciation even once, his voice loud and clear. Jason staggers a little, like he’s been hit, and Dean is _so damn proud_ of his brother, his nerdy little brother who learns exorcisms just for fun, God, Dean’s never going to make fun of him for that again.

“You _cannot_ —” hisses Jason, and now his voice is different – more guttural, definitely not human, like gravel falling down a rusted pipe and knocking against the sides as it goes. Instinctively Dean knows that this is the _ifrit’_ s real voice, this is what he sounds like when he’s not borrowing some poor bastard’s body. He’d recoil, if he were someone else, but he’s heard much worse. This kind of horror is nothing new to him.

“He can and he will, buddy,” he tells Jason, not bothering to keep the smug note out of his voice. “I’ll catch you up to speed, since you’re a few centuries out of touch – this is what we _do_ , you piece of shit.”

Jason’s body begins jerking, like he’s having a seizure. He remains upright though, as the _ifrit_ struggles to stay inside him, like he’s got his claws in the meatsuit and won’t let go. Sam doesn’t let up either, just continues reciting the Arabic verses like there’s no interruption, not taking his eyes off Jason even for a moment.

Dean can pinpoint the exact moment that he knows the prayers are working – Jason’s body goes extremely still, and for a second it looks like he’s not even breathing. Then he opens his mouth and exhales, long and slow, and his breath is cold where it falls on Dean’s skin, offset only by Sam’s warmth next to him. Sam still doesn’t stop reciting, even though he’s stepped closer to Dean, not until Jason’s body finally collapses to the ground, utterly still. The air around them is cold for a few seconds, before returning to normal.

Sam takes a deep breath, and then another, and then one more. “I think we’re done,” he says, quiet, and now the exhaustion is back in his voice, and Dean remembers that he’s hurt and he’s spent his night trying to get out of a coffin.

“Yeah, he’s gone,” Dean confirms, and kneels next to Jason, pressing two fingers to his neck. “So’s this guy, by the way. Dead.”

Sam sighs. “Of course,” he mutters, sounding a little disheartened.

Dean gets up again, nudges Sam’s uninjured side with his shoulder. “You’re safe,” he says, voice low. “I can deal with anything else.”

Sam melts into Dean’s side. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t really need to, not when his fingers are already slotting into place between Dean’s, his pulse strong and resolute under the thin skin of his wrist. This is all Dean needs. Everything else is secondary.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean attends to Sam first. He opens the car door for him and helps him sit inside, sideways with his legs still out. He takes the cooler out of the backseat and sets it in between Sam’s legs, using it as a seat while he gently cleans the mess that Sam’s made of his fingers. Sam winces in pain at the sting of alcohol, but doesn’t say anything. The way his brother is bent over his hands right now is spellbinding. Sam knows this look on his face, is intimately familiar with it, the way Dean looks so fucking _devoted_ , like even the simple act of tending to Sam’s injuries is some kind of worship. He could stay like this his whole life and not move, he thinks, just sit here and feeling nothing other than the sun on his face and his brother’s hands on his, Dean’s breath warm over his wrists.

Dean finishes cleaning them and wraps them in bandages, so so careful, like Sam is made of spun glass, something precious and fragile, something to look after and protect, and it makes Sam’s breath catch in his throat. Maybe it’s because he thought he was never going to see his brother again; maybe it’s because even the way Dean touches him feels different in light of their fledgling relationship; maybe it’s just because this is Dean, whom he loves, and this is the way Dean is, always will be even on the days Sam doesn’t think himself worthy of it. Whatever it is, it spills from his eyes and down his cheeks, silent and unstoppable, and he doesn’t even realize it until Dean looks up at him with concern in his eyes.

“Sammy?”

Sam wipes his eyes with his good hand, taking care not to mess with the bandages. “Sorry,” he mumbles thickly. “I just—”

Dean’s hand is on his face in the next second, gently wiping his tears away. “Hey, baby, it’s okay,” he whispers, eyes bright as he looks up at Sam.

Sam grabs hold of his brother’s wrist, closes his eyes, leaning into the touch. “I know,” he replies, voice cracking a little. “I _know_.” And he does. But logic tends to fly out the window when it comes to Dean, and the way they feel about each other, the twisted feeling Sam gets in his chest every time he looks at his brother and thinks _this is home_.

And maybe it’s Dean reading his mind, or perhaps it’s just that Dean knows him better than anyone, better than he knows himself, because the next moment Dean is pulling him down to press a kiss to his forehead, and laughing a little when Sam’s hair tickles his nose. “You really gotta get that cut,” he says against Sam’s lips.

“Yeah?” Sam asks.

“No,” Dean says immediately. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

That makes Sam laugh, despite the broken ribs. “Oh, Dean,” he says, teasing. “So predictable.”

Dean smirks at him, and tugs at his hair lightly before letting go and returning to his injuries. “I’m glad you’re alive,” he says to Sam’s hands.

“Me too,” Sam says. “What would you have done if I wasn’t?”

Dean looks up, eyes electric as they meet Sam’s. “You _know_ what.”

Yeah, he does. And it hurts to think it, but he can’t even blame Dean. It would be hypocritical to do so, when he knows he’d do the exact same thing himself. He wouldn’t even _hesitate_ , not even for a moment.

Dean finishes his other hand and lets go of it, sitting back on the cooler. “Okay, I’m just gonna go bury Jason, and then I’m taking you to a hospital, okay? Gotta get you looked at.”

“Why can’t we call Cas?” Sam asks, dismayed at the thought of being effectively useless for a while, and stuck in a hospital to boot. “He can fix it, can’t he?”

Dean considers this a moment. “Fine,” he says. “But if Cas can’t come, or if he doesn’t pick up, hospital it is.”

“Okay,” Sam says, giving in. He can see the sense in that. “And you?” he asks. “What about you? You okay?”

Dean gives him a long and leisurely once-over. “Yeah,” he says after a moment, and smiles sunnily. “I’m good, Sammy.”

 

Castiel picks up the third time Dean calls him, with a snappish, “Yes, Dean?” that Sam hears through the phone.

“I need your help _now_ ,” Dean tells him, not bothering with a greeting. He’s just gotten back from salting and burning Jason and then burying the remains in that stolen oak coffin, and now he’s in the driver’s seat, covered in dirt and sweat, and irritable from the exertion.

“Dean, I’m busy,” Castiel sighs. His voice is tinny through the old cell phone speakers but loud enough for Sam to hear from where he’s sitting next to Dean.

“It’s Sam,” Dean says. “He’s hurt. I just need you to heal him.”

There is a moment of silence. Then Cas asks, “What is it?”

“Rogue djinn,” Dean tells him. “We took care of it, don’t worry. But Sam’s got some broken bones, and we really don’t want to waste time at a hospital.”

Castiel just sighs.

“Cas?” Dean says when there’s no reply.

A flutter of wings, and Cas snaps his cell phone shut before saying, “Yes.”

Dean jumps. “Shit, Cas, we’ve talked about this,” he complains.

“It sounded urgent,” Castiel replies simply. He sits down on the cooler that Dean’s left between Sam’s feet, and asks, “What happened, Sam?”

“Um.” Sam wonders exactly how much to tell Cas. Dean’s right next to him, and Sam can feel the anxiety coming off him in waves, and he makes his decision in a second. “Got hurt fighting the djinn. It was an _ifrit_. He threw me around a bit. I broke my collarbone and some ribs, I think.”

Thankfully Cas seems to accept this without argument. “That should be easy to heal,” he says, and reaches out to place his hand over the right side of Sam’s chest, the tips of his fingers on Sam’s collarbone. A moment later Sam feels his bones snap into place, followed with a floating sensation and a wave of something cool and soothing.

“Oh, that’s nice,” he murmurs, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “Thanks, Cas.”

“No problem, Sam,” Cas says. “An _ifrit_ did this, you said?”

Sam opens his eyes, nods. “Yeah.”

“You realize _ifrits_ haven’t been seen in centuries?”

“Yeah,” Sam repeats. “Cas, he said he was only able to come here because the other djinn were too busy fighting the _ifrits_ that wanted to join Lucifer.”

Castiel sits back a little, regards Sam with a frown. “That’s… concerning.”

Dean snorts. “You don’t say.”

“I’ll be heading to Syria soon,” Cas says, clearly pretending Dean didn’t speak, much to Sam’s amusement. “There are many djinn there, living in tribes. I’ll see what the situation is and I’ll let you know.”

“Okay,” Sam says with a nod. “Thanks, Cas.”

Castiel gives him a small smile and a nod. “You are welcome, Sam.”

“Sorry to disturb you,” Sam says.

“It’s nothing,” Cas tells him, and stands. “Do you need anything else, Sam?”

Sam’s just about to say no before he remembers where they are, and says, “Uh, yeah, actually. Cas, everyone in this town died, and they all came back as death echoes.”

“ _Everyone_?” Cas repeats, stunned.

“Everyone,” Sam confirms with a tired sigh. “The _ifrit_ did it, he told us himself. We banished him and buried the guy he’d possessed, but Cas – there’s gotta be an easier way to get rid of the spirits, right? Other than just burning the whole place to the ground.”

“There is,” comes a feminine voice, and all three of them turn to find Billie standing there, dressed in all black as usual despite the sun. She smiles when she’s sure she has their attention. “I’ll handle it.”

“Billie,” Sam says.

She nods at him. “Yes.”

“Why’d you come down here yourself?” Dean asks. He’s shifted closer to Sam, probably unconsciously, as if afraid that she’ll take him away. Without really thinking about it Sam reaches out and places his hand over Dean’s.

“All those souls?” Billie gestures widely as if she can encompass the whole town with one sweep of her arm. “I couldn’t rely on just you two to deal with them. Kind of a big deal, you know.”

“Yeah, makes sense,” says Sam. “So you’ll take care of it?”

She nods. “They’ll be taken to where they’re supposed to go,” she says. “You’re welcome.”

“Right, thanks,” Sam says belatedly, while Dean snorts behind him. “Really.”

“Almost had you tonight, too,” she says, with a mysterious smile.

Dean turns his wrist to lace his fingers through Sam’s. “But you didn’t,” he says loudly. “You can’t have him.”

“Not today, no,” she agrees. “But I will, when it’s time. Him and you both, Dean. You can delay it as much as you want, but you can’t stop it.”

“Yeah well, we’ll see when it comes to that,” Dean says. “Right now, though? You’re not having him.”

Billie just gives him a look, almost like she’s pitying him. “Oh, Dean,” she says. For a moment it looks like she’ll say something else, but then she just smiles at them all in turn, and the next second she’s no longer there.

“Well, that’s handled, then,” Castiel says, and turns to Sam. “What did she mean, she almost had you?”

“Oh, you know,” Sam says before Dean can reply. “When the _ifrit_ was throwing me around.”

Castiel narrows his eyes, first at Sam, then at Dean, then at their joined hands. “Right,” he says. “And of course, you’re not hiding anything from me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Dean says, all airiness and false bravado.

Castiel turns up the suspicion, continues glaring at them.

“It’s nothing, Cas, really,” Sam says, offering a cajoling smile.

Cas sighs. “I see,” he says in the end. “Yes, of course you wouldn’t hide anything from me. I’ll see you guys later.”

And he’s gone before either of them can react.

“That went well,” Dean comments.

“Yeah,” Sam says dryly, turning back inside the car and closing the door. “I’m pretty sure we hurt his feelings.”

“Yes, because telling him what _really_ happened was gonna go over better,” Dean says sarcastically. “Seriously, Sam, he’d have kicked our asses to next week. Mine, actually. I’m pretty sure he’d leave you alone.”

“Dean,” Sam sighs, but he’s trying to hide his smile.

“No, really,” Dean insists, putting the car in reverse and turning to look over his shoulder out of habit as he pulls out, not that there’s anything that’s in danger of crashing into the car. “I actually think he’s got a little crush on you, Sammy. Can’t even blame him, really.”

“Dean!” Sam laughs. “Cas hasn’t got a crush on me…”

“Does too,” Dean says stubbornly. “He came immediately when I said you were the reason I was calling.”

“I’m sure he’d have done that for you, too!” Sam points out, grinning.

Dean shrugs. “Maybe,” he says. “But I still think he’s got a crush on you, Sammy.”

“You’re just projecting,” Sam accuses. “You think everyone has a crush on me.” Something occurs to him just then, and he turns to grin widely at his brother. “Oh. Dean, you’re _jealous_.”

“Hell no,” Dean says, too quickly to be believable.

“Yeah, you are!” Sam says delightedly. This is _precious_. “You totally are!”

“Shut up,” Dean says, ears turning pink, which is a sure sign Sam’s right.

“Oh God, I can’t believe this,” Sam laughs. “Dean, you’re jealous!”

Dean rolls his eyes, but just before that, just when he thinks Sam’s not looking, Sam catches the look on his face out of the corner of his eyes. Dean’s smiling, a discreet little thing, fond and secretive, and his eyes are bright, and Sam’s heart melts.


	9. Chapter 9

Dean puts Sam to bed the moment they’re back at the bunker, paying no mind to Sam’s numerous and colorful protests. “I’m not hearing it, Sammy,” he says firmly, the twentieth Sam tells him he wants to check his laptop. “You’re getting your ass in bed. Do whatever you want when you’ve had some rest.”

“Dean, I’m not a _kid_ ,” Sam tells him, also for the twentieth time.

“Don’t care,” Dean says shortly. “Come on. Bed.”

Sam sighs, loud and exaggerated, but follows Dean to his room anyway. He rolls his eyes in exasperation when Dean gives him a pointed look, but strips down to his boxers anyway, before crossing his arms over his bare chest and glaring at Dean. “Happy?”

Dean smirks at him. “Unbelievably so,” he says. He takes off his jacket, tossing it aside before unbuttoning his pants, letting them fall and stepping out of them. “You know what’ll make even happier, Sammy?” he asks, moving closer to his brother, grinning lecherously at him.

Sam shivers, despite himself, posture loosening a little. “W-what?” he asks, and Dean is pleased to hear the stutter in his voice.

“You, on the bed,” he whispers, bare millimeters from Sam’s ear.

“Yeah?” Sam says, hoarse even though he’s obviously trying to act like he’s unaffected.

“Yeah,” Dean confirms, voice low, one hand on Sam’s bare waist. “And me, in there with you. And you know what we’re doing?”

Sam lets his arms fall to his side. “What?” he asks, a flush creeping up his neck.

Dean grins, taking Sam’s hand and dragging him towards the bed. The smile abruptly vanishes off his face once he’s got Sam on his back under him. “Sleeping, Sammy. We’re sleeping. You know, as in, resting. You, especially.”

“You son of a bitch,” groans Sam, closes his eyes, face still pink.

Dean rolls off him and to the side. “Damn right,” he says. “You nearly _died_ , Sammy. You’re not doing shit till you get your strength up again.”

Sam opens his eyes, turning on his side to face Dean. “Yeah, about that. Dean, we’ve gotta talk about that.”

“No,” Dean says at once. “I’d rather not, thanks a lot.”

“Dean,” Sam says, and his voice is so soft, eyes wide as he looks at his brother, and fuck, that’s not fair, that’s not fucking fair, Sam knows Dean can’t refuse him when he looks like this. Fuck.

“Sammy, look,” Dean begins. “I wish it hadn’t happened. God, that’s such an understatement, fuck, I wish—well. Doesn’t matter what I wish. It happened, but it’s over, and I’d really like to forget about it.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Sam says, and reaches over to put his hand on Dean’s wrist. Fucking dirty moves. The kid’s a master at this game, Dean’s got to admit. A look here, a touch here, and Dean will do anything he asks. And he fucking knows it, too, not that he’ll ever admit it. “Dean, I get that, I do. It’s just—I don’t want you to blame yourself, Dean. And I know you’re going to,” he adds before Dean can interrupt him. “I _know_ you, Dean. And it wasn’t your fault, Dean. The _ifrit_ made you do it.”

“Sammy, I _buried_ you,” Dean says, and yeah, of course he’s spilling now. “With my own hands, fuck, I buried you, and I didn’t even check to see if you were _alive_. And I didn’t think, it’s like my brain was just… off. I’m just really fucking glad I didn’t think to salt and burn you.”

“Yeah,” Sam says, “yeah, me too, but Dean, look. You said it yourself. It’s over. You didn’t salt and burn me, and you came back for me. You _saved_ me, Dean. I would have died in there if it wasn’t for you.”

That’s a terrifying thought, heartbreaking when Dean thinks too much about it – his little brother, all alone in the dark, struggling to breathe, struggling to get out, knowing he’s going to die all by himself. And when he thinks of it like that…

A tear slips from his eye before he even realizes it’s been building up.

“ _Dean_.” Sam’s voice is so soft, and his hand on Dean’s face is so gentle, and Dean just closes his eyes, letting himself melt into the touch. “Dean, I’m here. You saved me, Dean, I’m here. I’m alive. I promise. Look.” He takes his hand off Dean’s face, grabs his hand, presses it to his own chest right over his tattoo. “See?” he says, when Dean opens his eyes to look down at their hands. “You feel that, Dean? I’m not going anywhere.”

Dean closes his eyes again, lets himself feel nothing but Sam’s heartbeat under his palm, strong and steady, as stubborn as Sam himself. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I know, Sam. But every time something like this happens…” He opens his eyes again to find Sam’s been looking at him all this while. “Sam, I almost lost you, man. And I can’t – you know it doesn’t get any easier to deal with. And I don’t know how much longer I can keep doing this. I’m just scared, okay, that one of these times it’ll be for real, and then what the fuck am I gonna do?”

“You’ll go on,” Sam says softly, hand warm over Dean’s. “You’ll go on, Dean, and you’ll save Mom, and Jack, and you’ll—”

“Oh, fuck off, Sammy,” Dean interrupts, without any heat. It comes out half a sob. “You _know_ that’s not what’s gonna happen.”

“Dean—”

“Is that what you’d do?” Dean demands. Sam’s not the only one who can hit below the belt.

There is silence for a moment. Sam watches Dean, fingers tightening just a little on Dean’s. “Dean, that’s not fair,” he says quietly in the end.

“Yeah, it _isn’t_ , so don’t you dare do that to me,” Dean snaps. “Don’t you _dare_ , Sammy, don’t you fucking dare.”

Sam presses his lips together, in that way of his that lets Dean know there’s an argument coming. He watches a myriad of emotions cross his brother’s face in the space of microseconds, and for a few seconds it looks like Sam’s undergoing some great internal battle. Then, finally, he lets go. “Okay,” he says, resigned. “Okay, Dean. Just – you gotta promise me, man. Promise me you won’t blame yourself for this.”

It’s not that simple, but at the moment Dean’s willing to do or say anything for Sam. “Okay, Sam, I promise,” he says immediately. “I swear, man. I’ll deal with it.”

Sam narrows his eyes at him, evidently scanning him for any sign that he’s lying. He probably doesn’t find any, because in the next moment he sighs, and shuffles closer to Dean. “Okay, Dean.”

“Okay,” Dean says. His hand is still over Sam’s heart. “You gonna sleep now, or is there something else that you gotta bring up?”

Sam snorts at that, rolling his eyes. “No, Dean, I’ll sleep now,” he says, the snark back in his tone, and Dean relaxes at that. Then Sam comes even closer, and Dean lets him tuck his head under Dean’s chin, Sam’s nose buried in Dean’s neck. Dean’s hand is still over Sam’s chest, trapped in between their bodies.

“God, Sam,” Dean says, voice breaking on his brother’s name. He lets his hand out from in between them so he can wrap his arms around Sam, and doesn’t speak again for a few moments. “I love you, you know that?” he says quietly.

Sam goes utterly still in his arms.

“I know I don’t really say it, but I do,” Dean goes on, running his fingers through Sam’s hair, tucking it behind his ears, stroking it in slow, languid motions. “I do, Sammy. And I don’t wanna lose you, ever again.”

“You won’t,” Sam says at once.

Dean sighs. “You can’t promise that, Sammy.”

Sam’s got nothing to say to that.

“I’m not asking you to promise it, either,” Dean tells him. “I’m just saying. I can’t lose you. That’s it, that’s all.”

“You know I love you too, Dean,” Sam says after a moment, voice soft and muffled into Dean’s skin. “And I’m here, okay. Dean, I’m not going anywhere.”

Dean knows him, knows he’s gonna keep repeating it till he’s blue in the face or Dean believes him. “Okay, Sammy,” he says in the end, and kisses Sam’s hair. “You gotta rest now, though, okay? Gotta sleep.”

Instead of replying Sam just throws his arm over Dean’s waist, clutching the back of his shirt like he’s still a kid scared of being alone. Maybe, in some ways, he is. Dean lets him, tightening his own embrace in turn, and takes a deep breath.

“Goodnight, Dean,” Sam says.

“’Night, baby,” Dean whispers.

Sam’s breathing evens out in a matter of minutes. Dean knows he’s bone-tired from everything he’s been through, and from the effort his body’s been making to heal itself. And he always sleeps better when Dean’s with him, because it’s the only time he lets his guard down enough to relax. But Dean stays awake for hours and hours, counting Sam’s heartbeat, counting every breath he takes, until he can tell himself that Sam’s not going to slip away from him and not have it feel like a lie.

He does finally relax, in the end, slowly drifting off to sleep with his brother safe in his arms. Sam’s not going anywhere, not for now. He’s alive, he’s here with Dean, in the home they’ve made for themselves in this old bunker, and for now it’s enough. It’s got to be. It’s the one anchor Dean has, and he’s going to cling to it until his last breath, and not let go even when all the blood in his veins has long since dried up. Sam’s his, his to have and his to keep, and there is no force in the universe that Dean’s ever going to let change that. He’d like to see anyone try, whether it’s some rogue _ifrit_ or Lucifer or literally anybody else.

His world revolves around Sam, is sustained by every breath he takes, his pulse beating life into it, into Dean, and if there’s one thing he’s sure of, it’s this – without Sam, there is nothing. All the Marys and Jacks and bunkers in the world couldn’t ever hope to come close to the way Dean feels about Sam, and the only other thing he knows for sure in this fucked up world is that Sam would do the exact same for him, in a heartbeat, in an instant, never hesitating.

Dean’s not okay, not by a long shot, but like this, with Sam in his arms, in his bed, his in every way? He will be. Maybe not today, but someday. He’ll be okay, and so will Sam, and that’s all that matters, all that’s ever mattered.

That they’re together.

**Author's Note:**

> i really would love to hear what you guys thought of the story! as i've mentioned, i'm really hyped for this big bang and i've been so excited to participate, and feedback would mean the world to me.
> 
> and don't forget to show all the love to [quickreaver](http://quickreaver.tumblr.com) for her glorious art!!
> 
> love,  
> remy x


End file.
